Slide Into the Night
by Dragon's Daughter 1980
Summary: Janos Arany wrote once, "In dreams and in love, there are no impossibilities." It's a faith that Atlantis is clinging to when the Pegasus Galaxy throws another curveball at them.
1. Chapter 1

**Slide Into the Night**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

**Disclaimer**: Other than being a fan, I have absolutely _nothing_ to do with Stargate: Atlantis in _any_ way, shape or form.

**Warnings**: Strong Language, Implied Violence

**Spoiler Warnings:** _Be All My Sins Remembered, _and then events take an AU turn...

**Author's Note: **This story was written as part of the _Season 4/5 Fix-It Ficathon_ on livejournal's john_elizabeth community. Special thanks must go to irony_rocks for organizing the ficathon and to my beta willowr who was invaluable with all her advice and generous with her time. To my readers, I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

Chapter One

In dreams and in love, there are no impossibilities. ~ Janos Arany

_Rising high and full over the clear waters of the endless sea, the twin harvest moons glow brightly in the midnight sky over New Lantia. On the pier, the flickering light of a massive bonfire illuminates the darkness, a defiant beacon of warmth against the approaching winter. Under the natural light of both flame and empyrean, the entire expedition is relaxing in the aftermath of a long month of daily harvesting on the mainland and on New Athos. _

_The only people who still have enough energy to dart around like hyperactive butterflies on stimulants are the children, who laugh and shriek as they run all over the pier. Over the past decade, the Athosian youth have learned variations of Earth games and have taken to playing tag whenever possible. Their exhausted parents look on indulgently while other adults either ignore the hullabaloo or encourage the chaos. There still isn't enough carefree laughter in their lives, and it is good to hear it whenever possible. Besides, if the kids wear themselves out now, they'll sleep all the sounder and later, giving their parents and caretakers a bit of a reprieve tomorrow._

_Rising above the chatter and gossip of an entire city at rest, he hears her laughter drifting over the crowded festivities. His eyes are immediately drawn to her, standing close to one of the makeshift bonfires on the pier._

_Head thrown back with carefree joy, the firelight shimmers off her brown curls, gracing them with a flickering glow. Her hands fly in graceful gestures, fingers sketching out a picture that only she and the sociologist she is talking to can see. There is a vitality to her movements—in the curve of her lips, the tilt of her head, the sparkle in her eyes—that testifies to the undeniable fact that she is alive and well; in their existence lies the reflection of the inner faith that has sustained her through all that Pegasus has thrown at her. Standing so close to the bonfire, the illumination frames her still-slim silhouette with a stunning beauty. Perhaps only visible to his eyes, she glows with the secret joy of impending motherhood. Even though he can't see the minute details of her face from this distance, he knows that her sleeveless crimson blouse has never failed to bring out the color of her green eyes. She smiles easily before she raises her champagne flute of fruit juice to her lips._

_As the sociologist turns away at the end of their conversation, she unerringly seeks him out in the crowd, the hemline of her black skirt brushing against her knees as she spins slowly to face him. When their eyes meet, she smiles, the amusement clear in her expression, as she raises her half-empty glass just a little bit in a 'come here' gesture. When she does so, the gold band around her left ring finger catches the warm glow of the fire and reflects it into the night. He smiles and nods in acknowledgement of her request, not at all sheepish that he's been caught ogling the woman he loves. _

_Jinto_ _passes by with a pitcher of watered-down wine, but he places his left hand over the rim of his cup, a gesture that the Athosian young men have learned means "no more, thank you." As he does so, the flickering flames of the bonfire are reflected on the simple gold band he wears, the mate to hers. He moves towards her, intent on stealing her away from the party. It's late enough in the night that no one will protest (or even bat an eye) at the disappearance of Atlantis' military CO and his diplomat wife from the festivities._

_A radio chirp sounds in his ear before Chuck's voice comes through, "Colonel?"_

"Colonel Sheppard, do you read me?"

He rolled over in his bed, his hand snagging his chirping earpiece and fitting it into his ear, "Sheppard here."

"Sorry to wake you up, Sir," said Chuck apologetically and he could practically see the expression on the Canadian's face. "The Daedalus and the Apollo have just made contact with us. Colonel Carter would like you and Dr. McKay to be in the Control Room when they get here."

"What's the ETA?" he asked, sitting up in bed and glancing at his alarm clock. It took a moment for him to convert to Lantean time, and then redo his calculations when he remembered that the days weren't so long any more. It was 0500.

"It will be around 0700 AST, Sir, two hours, give or take." At that answer, he pondered whether that would be enough time to join the Marines for PT, shower, rouse Rodney, grab breakfast and get to the Control Room early. It didn't take more than a second for him to ditch the idea of joining the Marines for PT before he showered. Rodney would be pissed at being woken up so early (and no matter how politely Chuck did it, his friend would bitch about being rudely woken up) and it would take forever to cajole the grumpy scientist into a human being with some sense of social norms. There was no way he was going to put up with a pair of pissed-off Colonels because he couldn't rein in Rodney's foul mood.

"Thank you for the message, Chuck." He decided that he would take a longer than usual shower to wake himself up. After the disaster of the past month…he closed his eyes briefly and firmly shut his thoughts away in a dark corner of his mind. It didn't matter.

He had to hold the city together, and whatever anger or grief he felt, there was also relief, because it was over for her. She was safe from pain and torture. She was gone.

She was dead, and that was that. He had to get over whatever he felt and move on, because he had to. There was no point in dwelling because she wouldn't want him to dwell or screw up. She did what she did, entrusting him to know what to do. She had always had more faith in him than he had in himself.

Now there was a chance for calculated revenge and at the same time, the possibility to fix the mistake that had cost her life. Finally, they had a chance to make things right, and he would seize it with both hands.

For her.

When the radio channel didn't close, he waited for Chuck to continue, expecting the younger man to pass on more orders. What he didn't expect the technician to do was to ask quietly, "Are you all right, Sir?"

He lied and cut the connection before Chuck could say anything more. With a heavy sigh, he took off his earpiece and placed it back on the bedside table.

0502


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

_One always wishes to fulfill one's purpose._

Humans were strange, Fran mused to herself as she sat alone at the table, only partially paying attention to the binary code running across the screen of Dr. Rodney's laptop. She was almost finished guiding the computer through the necessary recalculations. These devices were slow and cumbersome to work with compared with what she could do, but she knew her interference would not be taken kindly. It would be unnerving, she supposed, to see another being dissolve or literally meld with inanimate objects in order to communicate quicker with technology; she could see the thoughts in their eyes.

They were such open creatures, even when they pretended not to be. Their lips could say whatever they wished, but their eyes always spoke the truth. She wondered what her eyes said about her, even if it was merely that her component bases were interacting with each other on a vastly minute scale. No one seemed to dare to meet her eyes for very long, not even Dr. Rodney and Dr. Zelenka.

She knew more than she said. She kept her silence on matters that would discomfort them if they realized she knew. It was to soothe them that, in the end, she continued to play ignorant. It assured her creators that she was not the threat they feared she would become. It was not in her nature to be aggressive; it was not in her programming. She was structured to be logical, to move past the tangled webs of blinding emotions, and to simply be.

Emotions guided even the most logical of human minds; she saw it in the eyes of her creators. They knew, as well as she knew, that she was bound by the commands that ordered her form. They had input every key stroke, shaped every line, and given her life. They, above all others, knew she had one purpose in existence: to fulfill their will. She did not question it; she did not challenge it. It was a fact of her creation and reality.

Yet there was a subtle undercurrent of muted fear in the room. Her presence alone triggered a deep instinctive reaction in the men surrounding her. They were uncomfortable, unused to someone who did not function in the same way they did, even though they all displaced time and space in the same plane of existence as forms of bonded matter.

"What are you doing?" asked Dr. Zelenka casually, taking a seat next to her. She heard the edge of apprehension in his voice. He sat close enough to read her work, but his body was tense with anxiety. He was ready to duck under the table or bolt from his chair at the slightest hint of danger from her.

Fight or flight. She heard it. She saw it. She knew it.

That was another aspect of communication that most humans consciously missed. Their minds registered more than they knew, but they did not stop to consider the implications of their tone or words. There were stories to be read in mere words and gestures.

He was nervous. He was curious. Two conflicting states of being that ought to have canceled each other out. Humans were paradoxes.

"I am reviewing the final calculations, Dr. Zelenka," she said serenely. She saw him relax, his shoulders easing slightly, as he nodded and gestured, "May I?"

"Yes," she passed the laptop over to him. He was a steady man, a balanced mind. He was afraid of her, yes, but he trusted himself and his work. She was a part of his work.

On the other hand, Dr. McKay—Rodney—was afraid, not of her, but of the potential for failure that she embodied. She was his creation, but he was terrified of her, a terror overlaid with pride and founded on insecurity. He was a man who kept his deepest thoughts to himself, even as he broadcasted his emotions to the worlds at large, both literally and figuratively. He was a complicated man. She did not know if all humans were as complex and confusing as he was. The few humans she had met so far—four males in good health, in age from approximately their late-twenties to late-thirties—were either calmly balanced soldiers or frenzied scientists. She counted Dr. Zelenka in the former category, despite his doctoral degree.

"This is amazing work," he told her, passing back the laptop with an appreciative smile. She smiled back, feeling a warmth spread across her face at his words. How strange.

She heard his radio chirp and he smiled again at her, politely apologetic, before he tapped his earpiece and half-turned away from her, his body language excluding her from the conversation. She looked at the program, satisfied with its progress. A short conversation proceeded within her hearing, but she chose not to hear. She turned to look at him when his voice had fallen silent.

"Fran," he said politely as he rose from his seat, "I am needed elsewhere. Please do not leave the room."

"I understand," she responded, folding her hands in her lap. He gave her an odd look—again, the mixture of apprehension and awe—before he left the laboratory. As the door slid shut behind him and automatically locked, the program finished and the coding window closed itself.

This was problematic.

Now she had nothing to occupy her time. While there was a certain appeal to folding her hands and doing nothing, she felt it would unnerve her Marine guards to see her stare patiently at the walls. She tilted her head slightly as she considered and discarded a variety of actions. She was forbidden from leaving the area. There was no point in wandering around the room. She had already done so twenty times, for a combined total of 591 steps. There was only so many times that even a program like herself could stand to move in circles. It would also likely antagonize her wardens, and there was no point in executing a course of action that would accomplish nothing productive for any party involved or impacted. She wanted to do something useful.

She opened up a clean window on the laptop. She was forbidden from leaving the room physically. It did not mean she could not quietly roam Atlantis and explore her birthplace.

There were a variety of files on the laptop and she skimmed across their contents, her fingers randomly depressing keys as her mind freely roamed through the city's systems. Immersing herself in the streams of information that slid around and through her, she fixed miswritten codes, tweaked flawed subroutines, subtly suggested ways to untangle repetitious lines, tagged potentially vital information, pinpointed weaknesses, brushed past—

How odd.

She stopped herself and reversed course, bringing herself back to a file that had nearly skipped past her attention.

The program was familiar, yet oddly broken in a way. It was like her, but not like her at all. She gently touched its structure and felt its unarticulated meaning. What a curious purpose, to mix the logic of her being with the passion of humanity.

How intriguing.

She searched for more information and saw that its creator was her own creator. Her eyes crinkled slightly with satisfaction. This was a task she was uniquely suited for, and furthermore, a task that would satisfy a basic command of her existence.

This was the perfect puzzle.

She pulled herself back into the physical world as her fingers called up the prompt window. The misshapen program appeared on her screen and she began to systematically fix the gaps in its coding. Once that was done, she planned to restructure and expand the command routine to fulfill its intent. Her mind snagged on an additional piece of information and she coaxed it out of the system.

A single name drifted through her consciousness. A cross-reference with the personnel files yielded more information on the name's existence. She noticed that a notation had been added within the past three weeks: "Prisoner of War, deceased."

Yet the timestamp for the program showed that the last time of access was within minutes of the notation being added to the woman's personnel file. No changes had been made in the ten minutes that the program's command window had been open, but that made no sense. Why open a program without the intent to change it?

She let the question percolate in a small corner of her mind and turned the majority of her focus to untangling a particularly stubborn subroutine. While she did that, she caught the eyes of one of the Marine guards staring at her. She smiled at him, the gentle curve of her lips meant to express harmless intent.

A brief look of panic crossed his face before he abruptly looked away. His companion shifted slightly, the small movement nevertheless conveying simultaneous unease and amusement.

She looked back down at the laptop, sinking herself into the gray world between realities to work in both. As she did so, she decided that it was a fact:

Humans were strange.

~*~*~*~*~

_Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. ~ Proverbs 16:18_

It was an Earth saying that drifted through Oberoth's thoughts and he sternly banished it from his mind. The words were a whispered remnant of a proud woman who was dead and gone, her influence forever banished from the collective. It had been with some private regret that he had to destroy her—she had been an unique adversary to confront and manipulate—but she had become a dangerous unknown among his people, and her mere presence had become a challenge to his power. If there was one situation he could not tolerate, it was one of instability. So he had taken the very final step of obliterating her in front of a wide audience of spectators. They bore witness to his ultimate authority as their leader.

He smiled in grim satisfaction as he remembered the involuntary screams torn from her throat and the blood that flowed during those long hours. He had owned her to the last. She had died helplessly at his hands, body and soul. There was no dominion so complete as murder.

It had been a rather draconian and overly elaborate affair, but he thought it an appropriate staging to accomplish his goals. She had been reduced to nothing, his people were sternly reminded of their duties, and he had quelled any potential murmurings of rebellion among the majority of Asurans. Those who had silently objected were noted and now being carefully watched. Their little rebel project was proceeding along nicely, and it was really quite amusing to watch them fumble their way through the most basic processes of biological replication. Still, it would be prudent to employ a final solution to end the misguided notion that Ascension was the true path. He had personally ordered the battleships to move into position around the fake settlement. He intended to completely obliterate 'New Atlantis' when the time was right, and that time would be soon.

Perhaps that was the reason she lingered in his mind, the memory of her lifeless form sprawled in a satisfying stillness twined with a perverted admiration of her strength. After all, Elizabeth Weir had been the only one who had ever been foolish enough to challenge his power and stubborn enough to last as long as she did under his tender care. He would miss the deviousness of her sharp and willful mind. None of her clones, except one, had possessed the quick thinking that had made her so unique in his experience.

It was true, however, that it was the same quick thinking that had made her so difficult to dominate. He was irritated that her clone had escaped his control, but he was grudgingly thankful that she was no longer in his hands and causing trouble. The havoc that particular clone had caused in her little jailbreak had kept him busy for a month, soothing disgruntled followers and reprogramming those who had helped her. If only she been slightly more biddable and not so strong…there was only so much he could do with the original now, particularly since he couldn't experiment as extensively as he had originally planned.

Still, while he missed the vitality that had made the original so unusual, he had the chance to truly study the remarkable specimen she was—a human-Asuran hybrid—without the pesky political considerations attached to her existence.

He stepped into the Power Control Room and locked it behind him. With brisk steps, he walked over to a clear portion of the wall and pressed his hand against the smooth surface of the hidden control panel. He mentally flipped the correct lines of the programming that structured the city's walls and waited for the simplistic codes to obey.

There was a soft click before the wall slid away to reveal a deep and hidden recess. He stepped into the small, dimly-lit room and commanded the door to close and seal behind him. The figure on the floor did not visibly react to his entrance. She had ignored him ever since she had died. He smiled in appreciation of the cruel fact that it was impossible to die when your life was cradled in Asuran programming.

"Good evening, Dr. Weir."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

_The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next. ~ Mignon McLaughlin_

There were moments when Jennifer wished that she had a stronger sense of self-preservation.

Like now.

Then again, maybe that wasn't the point of being a doctor, a healer. Her job was to take care of her patients and go where they needed her, even if it was in the vacuum of space aboard a battle cruiser that was currently taking heavy fire. This was her duty, and she had to see it through.

The jarring impacts of missile hits against the shield made walking across the railing-free infirmary a dicey endeavor. More than one nurse and patient had stumbled or fallen hard against someone else at an unexpected blow. The abrupt swaying motion of the Daedalus as the battle raged on made inserting IV lines and performing any other type of delicate work next to impossible.

In a still moment, Jennifer quickly slid the IV needle home and quietly sighed with relief when she saw the backwash of blood in the catheter. She had already tried to establish a line twice, and each time, it had failed. Her patient stifled whimpers of pain as another missile hit jostled his broken bones. Without a word, someone handed her a filled syringe and she smoothly injected its contents into the man's IV line. As the morphine took effect, he relaxed into the firm mattress of the gurney before slipping off into a pain-free haze. She lightly ran her fingers down his arm, checking for compound breaks. They would have to get him under a scanner to be sure, but she suspected he was a lucky man not have killed himself by falling off the top of a vertical access ladder and hitting the deck below him.

Most of the regular medical staff on the Daedalus, as well as a good portion of Jennifer's own people were farmed out through the warship, assigned to various emergency repair crews to cut down on the time it would take to deliver medical treatment. So far, most of the injuries had been minor—small sprains, breaks, and shock burns that could wait until after they knew they were all going to survive. The infirmary, though, was still receiving a few major cases: a crewman who had fallen from an access ladder during one of the early volleys, another who had struck her head against the sharp edge of a bulkhead door, and two engineers who had been electrocuted by damaged circuits. F-302 pilots who had been rescued from the battlefield by the Engineering Department were also coming in and out for quick checkups and oxygen therapy. But so far, no one was in critical condition.

Jennifer didn't know how long their good luck would last.

"Jennifer?" called Rachel Jameson, one of her colleagues, from the doorway of the infirmary as she stepped over the bulkhead and into the area. "We've got one of the pilots!"

Behind her came two medics, carrying a stretcher with an unconscious man in a bloodstained, but thankfully intact, flight suit. It meant that whatever serious injuries they were looking at, the man at least hadn't been exposed to the merciless cold and vacuum of space. Hopefully Hermiod had managed to beam him in just before or right after his F-302 was destroyed. Rachel rattled off his vitals as they transferred him onto a gurney just as another volley struck. One of the stretcher-bearers went down hard, banging his forehead against the gurney's railing. His partner helped drag him to his feet, both of them staggering at the jumpy floor beneath them.

The doctors worked in tandem over the bleeding man, nurses bustling around them to stabilize him. When they stripped him of his flight suit, there was the briefest of pauses before the medical personnel soldiered on. Jennifer guessed that he must have impacted the console of his ship or hit a piece of debris hard enough to snap his ribs like fragile twigs. There were a few Daedalus nurses who were looking a little green in the face, and even the seasoned veterans from Atlantis had difficulty looking directly at the protruding bones. She expertly shoved past her nausea and focused on her patient. There was no time to be selfishly squeamish. She joked, sometimes inappropriately, about holding people's lives in her hands, but she did and she wasn't going to start screwing up now.

"Marie, let's start prepping him for surgery." At her head nurse's brief look of incredulity, and at the wide-eyed stares she was probably getting from everyone else within earshot, she added sternly, "He doesn't have time to wait."

It would be near impossible to perform surgery, much less a delicate operation like the one the pilot required, on a warship that was under attack, but there was no other choice. The man didn't have time with a broken rib resting at that angle to his lungs and diaphragm. There was no telling the degree of internal injuries he had suffered, and… if she didn't do anything, the chances of him dying were still higher than those of him dying if she did open him up. She had to take that slim chance to save his life and pray that he was as stubborn as all the rest of the patients she regularly treated.

"Do you want me to do this, or you?" asked Rachel quietly, taking advantage of a lull in the fighting to intubate the unconscious pilot. Her hands moved in swift, practiced motions, speaking of a familiarity gained by experience. Jennifer gave her a look as she pointed out, "You're the trauma specialist here."

"Got it," the other doctor nodded, moving away from the gurney to scrub into the surgery. Rachel knew what she had to do, and Jennifer wasn't on the Daedalus to handle trauma injuries. She didn't know why she had spoken up and insisted that she join the majority of the command staff on this risky mission. There was just a feeling in her gut that something was going to go wrong, something that would require her (granted, limited) knowledge of nanites to deal with. She sighed quietly to herself before she stepped away to let the nurses work. There was no point in second-guessing herself, not now.

She stumbled, almost slamming into the bulkhead as the ship lurched abruptly. For a moment, she allowed herself a silent, hurried prayer of safekeeping before she moved again, her heart still pounding away in her chest. Her radio was dead silent, with no calls for help, so whatever that last impact was, it had either been devastatingly fatal or it hadn't breached the shields. It was only after several seconds had passed that she realized that everything had stopped shaking. Was the battle over?

The injured pilot's gurney was pushed past her into the Daedalus' small operating room and she shared a relieved look with Rachel as the gowned, masked and gloved doctor went in. The pilot had a better chance of survival now that his doctor and nurses could work in a stable environment.

Rodney's plan must have worked, she thought with a hint of pride as the stillness continued. She motioned to Marie, who nodded and tapped her earpiece to open a radio channel. She did one last vitals check of the infirmary's patients as the core group of Atlantis nurses, all of them volunteers and experienced in handling nanite-related situations, gathered. While it was a reasonable hope, there was no promise that the away team had escaped nanite infestation during their brief infiltration of the city. The medical team had to be prepared for anything and everything.

When the ship's engines switched from the deep rumbling of its regular engines to the softer humming of its Asgard hyperdrive, and there was still no call of a medical emergency, Jennifer let herself relax a little. No terse calls for help meant that there had been little to no contact with the Asurans. If there had been contact, Rodney, for one, would surely be broadcasting that fact loud and clear across all channels. There were moments when there were benefits to having a hypochondriac around; he would always tattle on his teammates about off-world happenings. Other times, she wanted to just hit him with a bedpan…not that she would ever confess to that desire to anyone. She was a doctor, after all.

Her earpiece beeped, yanking her out of her thoughts, and she cued the radio, "Keller, here."

"Dr. Keller, bring your medical team up to the bridge," said Caldwell sharply, and she felt something inside her chest twist at the sound of his tightly-controlled voice. "We have a … situation."

She turned to her nurses, praying that her unease wasn't written starkly across her face, "Let's go."

Her team of volunteers split into two groups: one to stay in the infirmary, moving patients out of the way of possible contamination, and setting up a makeshift isolation room under Marie's direction; the other to go with her to answer the call. Trusting in her staff's efficiency, she grabbed her kit and the bulky bag that contained the majority of her Hazmat suit before hurrying down the half-crowded corridors filled with repair crews.

When she got to the bridge, she noted the SF officers standing outside the doors, their weapons drawn, and had a fleeting moment of worry that there was a foothold situation. She tensed, ready to throw her equipment at the men and run if she had to. But as she got closer, she could see that they were loosely holding their weapons at the ready, posted to contain the situation playing out on the bridge, whatever it was.

"Doctor," one of the SFs said politely. His partner nodded in silent greeting. She smiled back at them, "Airmen."

The first SF palmed open the sealed door and she went in without hesitation. Her first thought was that it was a false alarm. Caldwell and the rest of the bridge crew were sitting in their seats, a little more rigidly perhaps than normal, but they had just been through an Asuran bombardment, a battle that wasn't in their favor to begin with, and they were alive. She could grant them a little leeway for stoic shock. There were no sparking wires or burnt-out consoles that she could see; there weren't any crewmembers on the floor with injuries. The away team was standing quietly toward the forward area, all of them upright and unharmed. She noticed that Rodney was looking a little paler than usual, but then again, she hadn't been able to nag him to eat regularly for the past few days. Still, it didn't look as if he was going to collapse from his hypoglycemia.

Her second thought was how quiet it was, and how wrong that silence sounded to her. Besides her footsteps and those of her team, all she could hear was the sound of people breathing. It was never quiet in the Control Room on Atlantis, unless it was the night shift, and this was the Daedalus' bridge after a heart-stopping battle. Even Rodney, who usually greeted her with at least a sarcastic remark, if not a made-up complaint, was silent. Something wasn't right.

Caldwell stood up from his seat and gestured toward the front, "Doctor."

"Colonel," she said, moving to stand next to him, looking toward where he was pointing, "what's going—"

She stopped abruptly at the sight before her, her heart literally skipping a beat in shock. Behind her, she heard a nurse mutter quietly, "Oh my God…"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

_The road of life can only reveal itself as it is traveled; each turn in the road reveals a surprise. Man's future is hidden. ~ Anonymous_

"Shields at 75% percent," someone reported calmly from his left as the ship rocked from the impact. Steven exhaled slowly, clamping down on the instinctive fear that coiled in his gut. Nearly three decades in service, yes, and countless battles under his belt, but there was no way to banish the natural self-preservation instinct; there was only the ability to control and suppress it.

This battle wasn't in their favor to start with, and contrary to what others might think, it wasn't out of selfishness that he hoped his people would survive to the end of the day. He wasn't an emotional man, but he knew the names and faces of those who served under him and if there was one kind of paperwork he hated above all else, it was writing final letters to the families of his men.

McKay was notorious for pulling off last-minute saves under intense pressure, but this was starting to cut it close. There was also the fact, while McKay _was_ in the middle of an enemy position, he _wasn't_ in the middle of a firefight in the vacuum of space and it wasn't his ass on the line. How long had the team been away?

Steven resisted the urge to check his watch, choosing instead to split his focus between the reports streaming in from a variety of sources and incorporating the information into his overall strategy. There wasn't time to worry since shields were falling fast below 50% and that meant that McKay had better—

"Sir!"

He didn't need the surprised yip that slipped out of Tanner's mouth. He could see just fine for himself, thank you very much. It was an amazing sight to see, Replicator cells streaming out of their ships to glob together on the planet's surface, but he wasn't going to tell the wet-behind-the-ears private that.

"What's our status?"

"Shields at 47%," reported Marks, sitting at his right, "weapons still online, hyperdrive intact, engineering department says they're making bypass repairs now."

"Hawkins, fall back," he ordered and subconsciously registered his lead pilot's acknowledgement before the radio channel was cluttered with technical babble between McKay, Carter, Zelenka and Sheppard. He mentally sighed to himself, but he trusted that Carter and Zelenka knew how to keep the other two in line.

His brain alerted him to a change in the conversation when McKay said nervously, "This would be a good time for us to leave…"

Hermiod's dry, flat tone came over the command channel, "Locking onto six lifesigns and beaming now."

"Prepare to take us to the rendezvous point immediately after," he ordered. The Asgard acknowledged the command with a hint of his wry sarcasm. Steven reminded himself that he was a Colonel in the United States Air Force, commander of an USS battleship; it would be completely beneath his dignity and station to roll his eyes at the provocations of an ambassador from another race.

He ignored the small part of his mind that raised red flags—there wasn't a mistake—and checked in again with his F-302 squadron leader, "Hawkins, are we secure?"

"We're all in," his lead pilot reported. There was the white flash of the transportation device depositing the away team on the bridge and considering there was no immediate engagement by the SF team on deck, he considered the mission to be finished. He turned for confirmation to Carter, who was already saying, "We need to tell the fleet to jump to the rendezvous point immediately. The planet's become unstable."

He looked at Marks, who was already transmitting the message to the mixed group at large. There were benefits to having a highly-trained command team who knew how to anticipate his thoughts. He hoped that now their common enemy was destroyed, it wasn't going to be an immediate free-for-all at the rendezvous site between his people, the Traders and the Wraith.

"Get us out of here," he ordered on the command channel, intent on it being the first of a series of commands, but his attention was drawn to the dead silence from the away team who were standing at the front of the bridge.

As far as he could tell, all of the men were alive and standing. If any one of them had been injured, his comrades would have been hollering for a medical team the instant they materialized on the bridge. If Ronon Dex had been clocked over the head with anything, Steven didn't see it, and he was sure that McKay would have been complaining about thickheaded warriors or any other problem.

Oddly, McKay was silent as well, and Steven couldn't recall any time he had seen the man so still. The expression on the scientist's face was borderline petrified shock. He scanned the away team again, noticing that they were all focused on something in front of them, and then glanced down to see the source of their surprise.

He froze as the ship leapt into hyperspace.

He stared at the limp body of a woman sprawled on the clean deck, dressed in Asuran clothes, but clearly not a Replicator, if the crimson blood that pooled underneath her was any indication. She was alive, barely. He overrode his blabbering mind and called on his military training to not snarl angry questions at Hermiod. He didn't like surprises, and this was a surprise that…

"Hermiod," he kept his voice level, but the edge in his words was clear, "you beamed up six, and they're all human?" _You beamed down five humans and one Replicator. How the hell do you find a spare human wandering around in the heart of enemy territory? _

"Yes," was the prompt reply, if a little irritated at being questioned, "they all have transponder tags."

_You don't._

"Hermiod, that's impossible," interrupted Carter, her shock overriding her military training (or maybe it was Atlantis' SOP-style that was getting to her. Then again, she was a ten-year veteran of the SGC's flagship team, notorious for not only saving the world several times over, but also flagrantly breaking the rules to do it). She stammered, "That's…this is just not possible."

"All six of the transponder tags match with current access logs," snapped Hermiod, his patience with dumber life forms at an end. "I have three Earth soldiers, Specialist Dex, Dr. McKay, and—"

There was an abrupt silence from the Asgard engineer. It lingered until he said slowly, "I see. All I can assure you of is that the transponder tag that was assigned to Dr. Weir is implanted in a living, breathing human being."

Marks gave him a sideways glance and he nodded stiffly, understanding that his second-in-command had called in extra security to clear and seal the corridor between the bridge and the infirmary. He tapped his own earpiece, "Dr. Keller, bring your medical team up to the bridge. We have a—situation."

McKay looked up then, an incredulous expression flitting across his face, but the scientist held his tongue. The stocky man looked back down at the woman on the floor and made to kneel next to her.

"Dr. McKay," he barked in his sternest command tone. The scientist froze for a second in position before glaring up at him. Never let it be said that McKay let himself be cowed by anyone. Steven wasn't impressed, "She's a security risk. No one touches her."

There might have been a sound of angry derision before McKay snapped, "She's bleeding all over the place. If she's got nanites in her, the chances—"

"If that's the case," he firmly interrupted, cutting off the other man's voice, "unprotected contact with her is _not_ going to help."

McKay paled, but subsided. The rest of the bridge was silent and still, waiting to see what would happen. It was probably only a handful of minutes before the door unlocked and slid open, but it felt like a small eternity. Uncertainty always made a game of time.

He stood up as the medical team stepped onto the bridge, led by a pale-faced Keller who looked every one of her young years. With a hand, he gestured toward the front, "Doctor."

"Colonel," she said, coming up to him with a white-knuckled grip on her medical bag. She glanced toward the away team, "what's going—"

There was a moment of frozen silence when she saw the scene before her. Then as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Already moving forward, she said crisply, "Tim, Andy, help me with her. Suzanne, can you handle the others?"

"All right, anyone else hurt?" asked a tall brunette briskly, approaching the away team. When she received a round of headshaking all around, she continued, "No contact with her?"

It was painfully obvious who the person in question was, but only Dex let a low growl when Keller carefully rolled the unidentified woman onto her back. Steven held onto his military training to say nothing, even as his mind fell into incoherency. He vaguely noticed that Carter's grip on a nearby console had to be so tight that she was probably close to drawing blood on its dulled edge. Meanwhile, McKay turned a deathly shade of white and took a single step back, bumping into Dex.

Fresh blood completely soaked the front of the uniform jacket the woman was wearing, staining the woven fabric a dark crimson. Keller's hands were steady as she placed a gloved hand against the unconscious woman's chest. There was just the slightest rise and fall, the smallest hint that this person was still clinging onto life.

"She's alive," she said quietly, her voice carrying on the silent bridge. "Tim, establish a line and run it full open. Andy, the backboard."

"Jen—"

"No, Rodney," said Keller firmly, her eyes never leaving the still form of her patient, "go with Suzanne and get checked out." As if sensing his anxiety, she looked up and met his eyes as she said quietly, "I'll take care of her, I promise."

McKay swallowed and nodded once before he let Ronon drag him out of the room. The rest of the away team followed, shepherded by their attendant nurse. Keller returned to her work, moving her patient from the cold floor of the deck to the stiff backboard.

"Did anyone come into contact with her?"

"No," he answered for the entirety of his crew. She nodded absentmindedly as the straps went across the top of the stretcher, and she took the IV bag from one of her people. The medics lifted the ends of the stretcher, and he noticed how small the woman looked, swinging slightly in the air, completely at the mercy of others. He had never thought of her as frail before.

"I'll let you know," she promised as she left the room, the bridge SF team surrounding them in a bizarre entourage. There was a long silence after they left the bridge. A console beeped softly and Marks said, "Sir, we're coming out of hyperspace."

"Where's Sheppard?"

"They jumped after us, Sir."

Steven made himself think before he spoke his next words. What he wanted to say was 'Haul his skinny ass over here immediately,' but there were other considerations to think about, decisions that needed to be made that Sheppard…might not be able to make. While he didn't seriously think that Sheppard and Weir had anything going on before she was killed, there had been _something _between them. Even a blind person could tell that the two leaders were extremely close, and that Weir's death had hit Sheppard hard. He wasn't going to have a level head about this. Hell, none of them were.

"Let me know when he's ready to beam," he said to Marks. He turned to look at Carter, "Colonel, could you step over here?"

Carter nodded abruptly, prying herself loose of her grip. The two of them moved away from his crew, giving a large berth to the pool of drying blood on the floor. He came to a stop in front of the thick, impact-proof viewing window and felt, more than saw, Carter stop as well. He looked out into the turquoise stream of hyperspace and took in a steadying breath.

He had always played by the rulebook in his career, as much as it was possible to do so in the SGC (which was actually less often than the brass thought possible), and he wasn't one for flagrant flipping off of the rules. So he was hoping that Carter was as smart a soldier as she was a scientist and remembered all her time with O'Neill, because she was going to need it.

"We don't have an EMP onboard," he said softly, staring out at the window, "or the parts needed to build one."

There was a moment of frozen silence (and panic, on his part) before the other military commander agreed steadily to the half-lie, "No. Even if we did, I wouldn't recommend discharging one on this ship. The Asgard-Earth interface might be severely damaged."

With those simple words, he knew that she understood what he was trying to do and had signaled that she would follow his lead. She would strengthen this version of the truth when faced with their mutual superiors. He had no doubts that she would be able to pull it off. There were only a handful of people who had the required breadth of knowledge, much less the nerve, to challenge her assessment.

"It would interfere with our abilities to make repairs." It was not a question, they both knew that, but she pretended it was, just in case of an eavesdropper.

"Yes, Sir," she responded politely, "It could be worse than that: depending on where we discharged the device, how strong—"

"Carter," he growled, though he didn't actually mean it, but she skipped straight to the point, "It could take out everything: hyperdrive, shields, weapons, life support…"

"What's your experience with nanites?" he asked carefully, remembering that O'Neill had taken him aside before his first trip out to the Pegasus galaxy after Carter had taken command, and basically told him to tread carefully with Carter when it came to nanites (or else the older man would have his head. O'Neill didn't actually say that, but there was a look in his eyes that promised it. Steven wasn't stupid.). The other officer hesitated before she said neutrally, "Extensive, sir. Milky Way-variety of Replicators mainly, one extended encounter with—"

She cleared her throat before she continued, "I have had limited experience with Asurans based in Pegasus. Dr. McKay would be the expert for that."

"Is there a threat to this ship?" His instincts said that the situation was fine, but he wasn't the scientist here.

"No," she said firmly, and he knew there was honest conviction in her voice. Steven relaxed a little. "I don't believe you'll need to quarantine the crew; the containment procedures set by Dr. Keller will be enough."

"You sound very certain." He gave her a questioning look. She gazed back at him assertively, every inch the competent military officer and talented astrophysicist that she was. He nodded sharply and took an abrupt step back from her.

"Thank you Colonel. Do you need to be with your people?"

"Permission to be excused?" she asked, even though it wasn't really a request. He nodded again, "Dismissed."

She immediately turned away from him and left the area, her posture subtly tense and uneasy. He imagined that his body language wasn't much better at hiding the turmoil of emotions rolling through him either.

He turned around and raised his voice, "Marks, you have the bridge. Tell the men to stand down."

"Where will you be, Sir?" asked Marks, already taking control. The rest of his bridge crew were all studiously pretending to be absorbed in urgent tasks, which considering they were in hyperspace and nowhere near complete repair mode meant they were all paying sharp attention to his words and actions. He hoped that he had spoken quietly enough to Carter that none of his people had heard. If there was going to be trouble, he didn't want it coming from his crew, and if there was a sword that had to be fallen on, well… he didn't want to follow that merry thought to its conclusion.

"On the radio," he answered tersely and his second-in-command quickly subsided in curiosity, "Yes, Sir."

Steven needed space, and time, to think things through, to find a way to sort out this mess without more people getting hurt. He knew what kind of man Ellis was, and he knew that he had to talk the other man down. Otherwise this hellish day was really going to go to hell. He didn't know when or how Atlantis had changed him so deeply that he would be willing to take this half-baked risk, but that was how it was. The city and its residents really had a habit of getting under people's skin.

Elizabeth Weir was alive, and he would do his best to make sure she stayed that way.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

_The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe_

John sighed heavily as he rematerialized on one of Atlantis' wide, sweeping balconies. The comforting presence of the city hovered in the back of his mind, humming a soothing lullaby. As she cooed gently to him like a mother to her darling son, he could feel the tension leaking out of his shoulders. Atlantis always had that effect on him, calming him after a close call or a bad day. The city was home, and he would never give her up.

Home. He was home. Maybe it was just a trick of his mind, but it felt like the knowledge that he was back in Atlantis made all of the exhaustion he had been holding at bay crash down on him. The battle was over and he was drained. A part of him wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and stare mindlessly up at the ceiling, even if he didn't nap. It had been a hot and furious firefight. None of his people had been hurt, but Larrin had lost a ship and its crew. Even if they had known what they were getting into…that was still on him.

He shook his head; he couldn't afford to go there right now. It wouldn't help him get through the rest of the day. He wanted some downtime before he went to grab Rodney for dinner. His friend would need distractions until he was ready to deal with the finality of the situation, and John would be that distraction. But he needed to gather his own emotions and thoughts first, before he even tried to pretend to listen to Rodney's ramblings. If he was lucky, Keller would let him go without fussing about his headache and he could plead off the paperwork until tomorrow.

"Sheppard."

He groaned silently to himself. Caldwell did not sound happy, and John had no idea why his senior officer sounded like he was pissed off. The mission had gone well, the Asurans had been completely wiped out, he hadn't pulled any desperate stunts, and he had no idea why his superior was on the edge of chewing him out. He didn't want to deal with it, but Elizabeth would probably have his head if he brushed the other man off.

No. Elizabeth was dead. Carter was in charge now. He gave himself a moment to collect his wandering thoughts before he turned around to face the music, so to speak. He needed rest, time to regroup, to get himself and his thoughts in order. Elizabeth was gone; Carter was in charge; the Asurans were never going to bother them again. Was it a sign of burnout that he didn't feel guilty that Oberoth and his crew, the people who had murdered Elizabeth and hundreds of millions of innocent people, were dead? They had committed genocide, of a kind, today; was he becoming a monster for his lack of remorse toward that fact? He wondered what Elizabeth would say about him, knowing that in the deepest depths of his mind, he had done what he did in her memory, for her revenge. He wasn't sure what she would say.

Caldwell stood a few feet away, his grim expression completely at odds with the knowledge that they had pulled off a successful mission today. His arms were folded across his chest, and yes, the older man had a pinched look around his eyes, a definite sign that he was angry.

"Sir," said John respectfully, mustering up what patience he could. Whatever Caldwell wanted to throw at him, he could, and would, take without complaint. After all, the superior officer was just a stickler for the rules, not actively malicious. Plus, he was less of a pain in the ass than Ellis was. John didn't know what possessed him to agree with Ellis and the IOA's idiotic plans for a preemptive strike on the Asurans—maybe it was too much frustration at his people getting hurt and fury that they had hurt Elizabeth before—but he would always regret that mistake. Still, he reminded himself calmly, it was a mistake that had been fixed. Permanently.

"We have a…situation."

He blinked, caught off-guard by the other officer's hesitation. Asking a silent question of the city _iseveryonesafe?_, he asked aloud, "What kind of a situation?"

Atlantis hummed an odd tune that he had never heard before, an edgy chromatic set of notes. It sent a shiver running down his spine. She didn't feel particularly distressed, but there was an edge of cautious curiosity in her response, like there was something confusing or unsettling her. There wasn't quite a fretful edge in her answer to his query, but definitely an apologetic one and he wanted to rest a hand against the wall, reassuring the city that she hadn't failed him by not coming up with a more coherent response.

Caldwell executed a sharp about-face and strolled back into the city, the balcony door sliding smoothly open for him, "I think you need to see this for yourself."

Unsure what to make of the older man's behavior, he followed Caldwell's brisk strides down the half-empty hallways of Atlantis. He wasn't blind to the sideway glances that some people were sliding in his direction, and he wasn't sure what the situation meant. John cursed himself for not bringing a radio earpiece with him that morning. It hadn't been a necessary piece of equipment with the radio hookup on Larrin's ship to the rest of the armada, but he should have thought ahead to the fact that he was going to plunge straight back into his duties as Atlantis' CO as soon as the battle was over. Clearly he was out of the loop about some important happening. It wasn't urgent—if it was, Atlantis would have alerted him to it the moment he set foot on her, and so would have all the people he was walking past—but there was something going on, and he had a sinking feeling that he probably wasn't going to like it.

They were heading in the direction of the infirmary, he realized, as the two of them walked in brittle silence, and with every step, the number of civilian members in the corridors became inversely proportional to the number of armed Marines posted at regular intervals. Most of the men were Atlantis-based soldiers under his command, but there was a sizable number of SFs from the Daedalus present as well. That didn't sit well with him. Never, in all the years Atlantis had been in contact with Earth, had Caldwell posted his own security teams in the city when it was secure. John also noticed that all of these security guards were tense, and it wasn't the sort of tension that came from having your COs walking past without warning. This was the kind of tense that reminded him of pre-battle jitters, where everyone was on edge for the next nasty surprise. He resisted the urge to glare at Caldwell, silently chewing out his superior officer's screwed-up method of telling him what was going on.

Considering that the civilians all seemed either frazzled or bemused (which were the usual states of being, with the alternative choices of hysterical, over-caffeinated, and/or McKay-icidal), he felt somewhat confident in concluding that no one from the city had been killed during his absence. While he wasn't one for prayer, he hoped that none of his people were infected with nanites as Caldwell led the way through an unusually silent and deserted infirmary. It was a plea that went unanswered when they entered the back corridors of the infirmary, walking into a darkened observation room. Enough light came through the sweeping reinforced glass-like material from the isolation unit below to dimly illuminate the simple furnishings of the room—stools and a table. Caldwell went directly to the open wall and stared downwards. John thought maybe it was a trick of the shadows that softened the pinched lines on the older man's face until his expression appeared merely weary beyond measure, as opposed to disgruntled.

After the briefest pauses at the threshold of the room, John joined him at the glass windows and copied his actions. Time froze in a perfect moment of disbelief as he stared at her still form below, surrounded by the circling figures of doctors and nurses who hovered around her. Yes, the ventilator obscured part of her face, but he knew her. Without a doubt, he knew it was her.

She slept on, so fragile and delicate that he wanted to order Keller to leave her alone. With her dark curls spread on starched white sheets that were nearly the color of her skin, she looked like a pale ghost clinging to the edge of life. Was this just a dream that would fade away with the morning? A blur of red movement caught his attention and he looked. He promptly wished he hadn't.

Crimson stained the formerly pristine bed sheets until they were the shade of dark burgundy wine. The gloved hands of the nurses and doctors working on her were a sickly pale pink, splattered with fresh red droplets. He could tell they were being as gentle as they could with her, but his eyes still darted back to her serene face. How could she not be screaming from the pain?

At that thought, the ice cracked and the dam of reality slammed into him with all the grace of a boulder. This couldn't be happening. This _was_ happening.

He turned to Caldwell, all thoughts of diplomacy forgotten, and snarled, "What the hell happened?"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

_Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. ~ Seneca_

Reaching up to finish restocking the shelves in the main treatment area, she glanced at the infirmary clock as she pushed the last box into place. _Five hours_, the cinnamon-haired woman fretted to herself. _Just how bad is it? What are they doing in there?_

"Dr. Jameson?"

At the deep rumble of Colonel Caldwell's voice behind her, Rachel straightened to attention before turning around. She quashed the sudden urge to take a step back from the man's taller frame; he was a bit too close in her personal space for comfort. Despite the fact that she worked with Marines on a daily basis, the stronger and taller men and women generally took care not to make her uncomfortable. But in his defense, Caldwell probably didn't even realize that he was standing too close to her.

"Yes, Sir?" she acknowledged his presence, politely ignoring the rest of the uneasy Senior Command staff that waited in the quiet infirmary. Colonel Carter was speaking softly to someone on the radio, occasionally tapping the screen of her PDA. Major Lorne must have left to attend to some matter or another since the last time she had glanced around the room, because she didn't see him anywhere. Ellis was nearby, visiting a few of his men who were occupying infirmary beds.

Caldwell asked seriously, "How are my people?"

She gave him a reassuring smile before she began reciting the list of injured Daedalus personnel to him, "Dr. Olsen has been treated and released. Doctors Long and Dunham and Lieutenant Moore are doing well. If they continue to improve, we'll probably release Dr. Long in a few days and Dunham by the end of the week. Lieutenant Moore has a long recovery ahead of him, but with some patience and PT, he'll be back in the cockpit in no time."

"And Lieutenant Souter?" he prompted. Rachel resisted the urge to glance toward the OR's closed doors, but she did pause for a heartbeat before she told him, "He's still in surgery. The internal bleeding was more extensive than we expected. Dr. Chen is with him right now. She's one of the best we have."

The senior Colonel nodded, "Thank you, Doctor."

The man turned away, walking back to hover around the core group of Lantean leaders who were clustered together in a tight knot in a corner of the infirmary. She watched Dr. McKay pace back and forth, eerily silent in his agitation, under the watchful eyes of Ronon. Teyla, on the other hand, was sneaking concerned glances at Colonel Sheppard who was leaning against the gurney, arms folded defensively across his chest. It was well know that the flagship team of the city had been extremely close with Dr. Weir before…

Rachel sighed to herself. The rumors had to be flying all over the place outside of the infirmary about who had been rescued and how, but other than Jennifer and her core unit of volunteers, no one knew anything for sure. For a city populated by some of the most brilliant minds of a generation, there was sometimes a surprising tendency toward hysteria, rather than cool, hard facts. She usually found it amusing, when the situation wasn't life-threatening. Today though…she didn't know what to feel. On one hand, they had rescued one of their own who had been captured over half a year ago and presumed dead for the past month; on the other, they didn't know if she would survive. Rachel didn't have anything more than a glimpse of Jennifer's patient before Jennifer and her team had whisked themselves away into an isolation room, but there was a lot of blood, the kind of staining on the floor that indicated massive amounts of blood loss. _Fatal_ amounts. Then there were the whispers about nanites and agitated gestures that faded into incoherent mumbling whenever she walked by McKay. She wondered what that was about, and what Jennifer would want her to do as temporary CMO. There had been some brief discussion between the two doctors in the days before the mission about containment and quarantine protocols, treatment options and the chain of succession if things went…wrong. But she wasn't sure what this situation counted as; hell, no one really knew what the situation _was_.

So they all turned eagerly when the main door to the isolation units unlocked with a quiet hiss. Without a word, Jennifer stepped out of the isolation area, her expression rigidly neutral. Her green scrubs were spotless, clearly indicating that she had taken the time to cleanup before coming out. Rachel knew the other woman would have had to; six hours wearing the same set of bloodstained clothing was one thing when it was a necessity to stabilize your patient. It was entirely another when coming out to meet the patient's next of kin and delivering a tentative prognosis. She searched her friend's professionally aloof face for any sign of emotion, and when she didn't find any, Rachel knew that the news was bad.

At Jennifer's appearance, McKay spun around before Ronon clamped a hand down on the shorter man's shoulder, pinning him in place. Sheppard reached out and helped Teyla slide down from her seat on a spare gurney. Carter ended her conversation and put away her PDA, her expression smoothing out into a neutral mask. Caldwell stood at the very back of the group, his imposing frame radiating unease. The shorter, stockier Ellis stood next to him, shrewdly watching the entire group. Jennifer's eyes flickered across her audience's faces and then glanced at Rachel for just a moment.

"Well?" demanded McKay harshly, an undercurrent of frantic concern under his biting words. "How is she?"

All of the infirmary staff learned very quickly upon their arrival in Pegasus that McKay had little to no patience with medicine, and that he was vocal about it. Everyone learned not to take it personally when he started ranting, and if things got out of hand, to get his teammates to calm him down. Jennifer usually managed to handle him with a sweet smile and a tauntingly meek attitude, but today, her bland mask slipped and she said with cold fury in her voice, "She's as well as can be expected after surviving—"

Jennifer visibly caught herself from venting her anger, her professional attitude quickly falling back into place before she continued more calmly, "She's doing as well as can be expected. We've got her stabilized for now, but there's no telling if she's going to pull through."

"How bad is it?" asked Sheppard quietly. Jennifer glanced again at Rachel, who unobtrusively moved closer to the group of listeners. The blond-haired doctor sighed, "Physically, she's in bad shape: severe malnutrition and dehydration, repeated fractures, possible concession, massive blood loss, internal bruising and bleeding…" She trailed off somberly, "Elizabeth still has active nanites in her, and they're the only thing keeping her alive at this point. We had to put her on the ventilator for a little while, but we're going to take her off of it when her lungs completely heal."

Her expression grim, as if she already knew the answer and was merely seeking confirmation, Teyla nevertheless questioned, "What do you mean?"

Jennifer paused before she said carefully, "When Rodney and I reactivated the nanites in Elizabeth, after the Asuran attack, we tried to strip them of their coding as much as possible and still have them work. They're not quite the same as regular nanites—there's a similar base code, but completely different programming."

McKay interrupted quietly, "It's like technology." At the confounded looks he received from the group, he snapped irritably, "It's the difference between telegraph poles and wireless communications. Both can get a message from A to B, but the telegraph takes forever compared to the wireless. I made sure that Elizabeth's nanites couldn't upgrade beyond a certain point."

"In English?" asked Ronon, crossing his arms. While McKay spluttered something about the fact that he _was_ speaking English, Jennifer sighed, "It means that the Asurans couldn't take complete control of Elizabeth's nanites. While the ones in Elizabeth never changed after she was infected by Niam, the Asurans did, with their nanites becoming more complex and advanced until the two probably had very little in common."

She hesitated before continuing, "Judging by her extensive injuries, I think that there were two sets of nanites in her bloodstream. Oberoth probably gave her another set to…um, there's a lot of evidence that he probably used them to control her." What Atlantis' CMO wasn't saying was bright as the noonday sun, but no one in the group surrounding her pointed that out as she continued, "When we did what we did on Asura, we… we pulled those nanites out of Elizabeth, while the original set that we used to save her weren't affected."

Rodney had turned a sickly shade of white, his mind clearly jumping ahead to the physical repercussions of ripping out thousands of tiny machines from someone's body, and he wasn't the only one who looked ill. Teyla had taken Colonel Sheppard's hand in a white-knuckled grip while Carter's expression was too bland to be a natural reaction. The rest of the group practically radiated murderous rage, and Rachel knew it was a very good thing that the Asurans were completely destroyed because this particular set of talented and determined people wouldn't have stood for Asura's existence a moment later if they weren't. She made a mental note to herself to radio Major Lorne as soon as the group broke up and warn him about Ronon's foul mood. She would also direct Marie to also stock up on Ace bandages and ice packs for all the bruised and battered Marines who would start trickling into the infirmary before the night was over.

"Pulled them…?" McKay's knees wobbled, but Ronon was there to catch the head scientist before he could lose his balance and take a hard fall. Jennifer shook her head sharply, "It took a while to clean her up, but she's healing, slowly. Because of the concussion, I can't have her on heavy painkillers, but once she wakes up and we run a neuro-check, I'm going to put her under heavy sedation and keep her that way for a few days."

Carter brought up the main subject in everyone's thoughts, "And the nanites?"

Jennifer nodded toward McKay, "I had Drs. McKay and Zelenka check. So far, the nanites seem to be doing their job and only that. None of my people have been infected, but we will stay in isolation with her until we're absolutely sure. Until then, Dr. Jameson will take my position."

Rachel nodded, giving everyone a forced smile of polite greeting when their eyes all honed in on her. She didn't look forward to being in command, but her superior had insisted that she take over the position for as long as they were unsure about the possibility of nanite-transmission between patient and caregiver. Everyone looked away from her when Jennifer spoke again. "I can't promise anything at the moment," she sighed. "It's just too soon to tell."

"What security measures are you taking?" Rachel could feel the vague tension in the room snap into outright hostility at the question from Ellis, but Jennifer kept her tone unchanged as she responded, "We're using Hazmat gloves when we're in contact with her. There are a set of guards in the room with us, and six more in the corridor, all armed with ARGs, but—" here, she shook her head, "there's really no need for it. I don't think she has the strength to sit up unaided, never mind break through all the containment protocols we have in place. She's being constantly monitored."

"She's a—"

"She's a human being," cut in Jennifer firmly, concentrating her ultimate authority as the Chief Medical Officer of an entire expedition in the glare she threw at the man, "and she's _my_ patient. Anything and everything that is even remotely concerned with her health and well-being goes through me. That is the end of the discussion. If you will excuse me," she looked straight at Carter, "I have to get back to her. Is there anything I should know?"

"No," sighed their expedition leader, giving Jennifer an unreadable look, "just keep us in the loop if anything changes."

"Of course," nodded Jennifer. She caught Rachel's eye and tilted her head slightly toward the doorway. With another polite smile, Rachel walked past the senior staff of the city and went to her boss. The two of them stood in front of the isolation area's doorway for a moment in silence before Jennifer said quietly, "If anything happens that you think I need to know about, radio me, day or night. Keep an eye on McKay when you can, and the Colonel—never mind, just… I need you to talk to Karen, get her up to speed on things. There's a flashdrive on my desk—you'll know it when you see it—give it to her; it has all of Carson's notes about Elizabeth's condition and everything the two of us know about nanites. She should also have Kate's notes if she needs more information. None of this is going to be pretty, and she needs to be prepared."

"Any other words of advice?" she asked, half-jokingly, but not really. Rachel didn't feel ready to take command of Pegasus' best medical facility. She could deal with the trauma cases that came in, cajole and order her colleagues into getting along with each other, but she really didn't want to deal with the politics that came with the position. She wasn't entirely sure she could have politely told Ellis to shove it as Jennifer had.

The other woman smiled a little, "Have faith in yourself. I trust you to run things. I think you can come in and clear us in about a day or three."

"You think we'll know that soon?"

"No, but by then, hopefully…things will be different." Rachel didn't get what Jennifer meant, but she had the feeling that the other woman was referring to something besides their patient's health. She nodded anyway. Hopefully, things would become clear with time, or at least, Jennifer wouldn't have to guard her words so closely. She reached out to squeeze her exhausted colleague's shoulder in sympathetic support, but the blond-haired doctor took a sharp step backwards, "Don't."

Rachel froze for a moment and then nodded, understanding the reason that Jennifer was refusing contact. It was safer that way and by maintaining no contact, it allowed her to come out of the isolation area to directly brief Carter and her staff about what was going on. She lowered her hand and nodded again. "Got it. Good luck."

"Thanks," Jennifer smiled wearily as she punched in her authentication code into the keypad. There was a soft beep before the door unlocked and slid open. Rachel watched her friend vanish back into the isolation unit.

She turned away with a sigh. This was going to be such a mess, but she didn't let herself linger on that thought. She was Atlantis' CMO now, and she needed to fulfill her duties, which meant she needed to bother a certain military officer about a certain matter.

"Colonel Sheppard?" she called out, stopping the man from leaving the infirmary with everyone else. Teyla gave him a concerned look, but he smiled reassuringly at her before she stepped out into the hallway. He strolled over to where Rachel was standing, his posture deceptively casual and laid-back. He smiled at her, "Yes, Doc?"

She smiled back at him. "How is your headache?"

He gave her a mock incredulous look. "Why do you think I've got a headache?"

"Because you've always gotten one after extended periods in the chair," she responded, pulling out a few foil-wrapped packets from her labcoat pocket and handing them to him, "and I know what you've been up to for most of the day. Andy forgot to give you some painkillers." He gave her a confused look before glancing down at the packets in his hand. She didn't even have to count to three before he was staring at her with a "what the hell?" expression. She closed his fingers around mild sleeping aids, saying, "You need these. You've been running yourself ragged these past few weeks, planning the mission. Take these for a few nights, get some good sleep. Or, you could continue to look like you've been run over by a Puddle Jumper."

"I seriously look that bad?"

"You're getting there," she told him, letting enough levity creep into her voice to tell him that she was teasing…a little. He sighed, his shoulders slumping before he tucked the packets into his breast pocket, "Is there a horrible bedside manner class all you docs go through?"

She smiled, glad for the light banter. "No, but good doctors always get grumpy when they know their patients aren't taking care of themselves."

"Thanks, Doc."

"Not a problem," she said, letting him go. As he left the infirmary, she mused to herself that perhaps watching out for Colonel Sheppard's team in Jennifer's stead was going to be the smallest of her problems. The major one was going to be keeping her oath to do no harm. She could already foresee the long debriefing session ahead of her, and the games of politics she would have to play in her friend's stead until the quarantine was lifted. She sighed, realizing that her CMO had far more faith in her ability to keep the paranoid IOA off their backs than Rachel had in herself.

Glancing around the infirmary to see that there were no emergencies, she headed toward the medical staff's little lounge. It was a somewhat spacious ex-closest that had been converted to a private space for the infirmary staff to grab a cup of coffee, find a small snack or steal a few hours (minutes, if things were absolute chaos, which they periodically were) of sleep before, during or after their shifts.

Rachel was going to find herself a large cup of coffee. After shift, she promised herself, she would find another cup of coffee with a heavy shot of Zelenka's whiskey before she even thought about starting the medical paperwork on the day's events.

She was going to need it.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

_Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care? Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare? ~ Jonathan Larson_

She remembered being scared of the dark as a child. There was something about utter blackness that had terrified her, so she would hide under her covers, huddled under the thick blankets until she could barely breathe. If she acted like she wasn't there, the monsters wouldn't see her, and they wouldn't get to her. She would be safe.

One night, her father had found her like that, half-smothered under the weight of her favorite comforters, and drawn back her protective shield. At the sudden rush of cold air over her head, she had startled awake and screamed, convinced that the night monsters had come for her.

Her father had immediately wrapped her up in the tightest hug she had ever known, and she quieted, safe and sound in his arms. He'd carried her to the window and pointed out the stars shining above them in the indigo firmament, casting an eternal light in the universe that would never fade. He'd soothed her tears with warm, gentle hands, cradling her close to his chest. He had sat with her that entire night, whispering stories in her ear until she fell asleep. When morning came, he was still holding onto her, keeping her safe from the monsters in the dark.

When she was older, she could only guess at her father's panic at finding her in bed, seemingly not breathing. He must have been terrified of what he might find under the blankets. But he had held onto his calm and that night, her father had shown her that the darkness was nothing to be afraid of.

She embraced that thought now, clinging to the silence that surrounded her. Inky nothingness meant that _he_ was gone, that she was alone with her thoughts, that she was free from pain, that she was safe as she would ever be. Time lost its meaning in the endless night where she lived, but she relished the disappearance. People used to live with the rise and set of the sun, counting the days by nature's cycle. Now she counted by the breath, by the beat, by nothing at all. Nothing mattered except the precious moments of stillness between the firestorms of silent agony that relentlessly attacked her without warning.

A persistent noise warned her of the searing waves of pain that awaited her. She hadn't heard _him_ come in, but there were moments when she completely lost track of the world around her. It was entirely possible that _he_ had never left after _his_ last…game…with her. She wasn't sure. One moment, she had been alone in her small, squalid prison cell; the next her reality had erupted into an agonizing volcano of infinite pain that relentlessly tore her apart, healed her and started all over again until she had mercifully slipped away into darkness.

She stubbornly clung to unconsciousness, but felt herself being inescapably pulled toward whatever twisted torment awaited her. A small part of her wailed in terror and cringed in fear, but she stubbornly pushed that traumatized part of herself into the depth of her mind. If _he_ wanted to play again, _he_ was going to be sorely disappointed. She would make sure of it.

As she surfaced into _his_ reality, excruciating pain slammed into her, robbing her of all coherent thought. A shrieking cacophony of alarms and voices shoved her into a world of blinding light and endless torment. Her fragile subconscious prayed, _Though_ _I walk through the valley…_

Someone touched her, and she couldn't stop herself from reacting to the bolts of pain that shot through her.

She soundlessly screamed.

~*~*~*~*~

0256

It was late.

By all rights, he should have been sound asleep, worn out by exhaustion and mental strain, or knocked out by the packet of sleeping aids Jameson had pressed into his hand. Why anyone thought he could possibly sleep with this mess on his plate was beyond him. If Keller caught sight of him up here, there'd probably be hell to pay, but he had already been to hell and back.

John didn't know what he was doing, or why, just that he needed to do it. He didn't want to question it too closely. There were some answers he knew he wasn't ready to face, to deal with, not now, not like this. So instead, he sat in the darkness, elbows resting on his knees, hands loosely collapsed, shoulders slumped from exhaustion. For the past few months, if he stopped moving, stopping doing, he lived in a numb fog. It wasn't quite like he didn't care about his duties, but he…struggled without her. There were moments when he berated himself for acting as if there had been something between them, but those were far outnumbered by the moments he wished that there had been, that she had known, beyond a few hints and touches, a handful of "just relief" nights, that he had loved her.

He really was an idiot—an exhausted idiotic flyboy who needed to be in bed, asleep, not sitting alone in the observation room, hoping not to get caught or have unexpected company. There was a brief urge to chuckle in ironic amusement; he had spent too much time with Rodney. His thoughts were beginning to sound like there was a mini-acerbic genius in his head. He told himself to tone down the confusion. He needed time, to think, to plan, to…to consider, because she was the one who had taught him that every action had its consequences, intended and unintended. He was _not _going to put her people in harm's way and that….

He sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. No one knew what she had been through, if she was even still the woman they all remembered from before the damn attack. He knew, from personal experience, that being captured and tortured by the enemy always left deep scars. He didn't know how deep they were for her, but… Oberoth was a sadistic egomaniac with an inflated sense of self-worth who had enjoyed taunting Elizabeth in their previous encounters. Who knew what had happened while that Asuran bastard had her completely at his mercy for all those months?

He looked through the wide windows, which gave him a perfect view of the isolation room below. There were two Marines stationed at the entrance and, on the other side, six more guards. All of them were volunteers and armed with modified ARGs. A pair of nurses hovered around her bed, placed in the center of the room. Machines surrounded her, all of them monitoring her survival, all of their chirping and beeping testament to the fact that she was still alive.

Despite the late hour, the bright lights in the isolation room were turned to full strength, chasing away the shadows that might have lurked in the corners of the treatment area. The strong illumination bleached out the color of her pale skin, making the crimson stains on her pure-white bandages stand out all the more vividly. Her breathing was slow and labored—he held his breath with hers, waiting and praying for the next rise and fall of her chest.

He knew that she was asleep, carefully and deeply wrapped in chemical slumber, far away from the pain. He hoped, for her sake, that she would remain that way. It had been sickening to listen to Keller's flat recitation of all of her injuries and scars, to know that she had suffered that much because she had chosen to stay behind for their sake, and he hadn't managed to get her out in time. He hadn't saved her when she trusted him to. If she survived this, by some miracle of Fate, how could he face her?

He sighed again, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. Dinner in the mess had been a strained affair; the entire city was abuzz with the news of her rescue, but no one dared to openly talk about it. Rodney had been either exceedingly quiet or extremely snappish over the course of the meal, frustrated by the covert attention being paid to them by everyone else. Ronon was radiating his angry glower—a foul mood that even Teyla didn't try to soften. Instead, their usually serene teammate was as close to brooding as he had ever seen her. After a few weak, half-hearted attempts, he gave up on trying to ease the tension in the group. They were all distracted and unhappy and there was nothing he could do about it.

The shrill wails of various alarms going off catapulted John from his seat and he caught himself with the safety railing in front of the windows. He had a white-knuckled grip on the smooth metal rail as he watched the events play out below him, the swarm of orderlies, doctors and a few Marines descending around her panicked form.

That she was in the throes of unbearable agony was clear; whether she knew where she was, that was another matter entirely. If she recognized any of the masked faces that surrounded her or heard their voices, she gave no sign of it. Whatever drugs Keller had given her to take the edge off of her recovery was long gone. She was completely disoriented and frightened as she mindlessly fought the medical staff. He heard the barked orders for medication—sedatives and painkillers, he guessed—and restraints. His already white-knuckled grip on the railing tightened when he heard Keller's command. Intellectually, he understood the reasoning behind the order. No matter how weak Elizabeth was, her nanite-enhanced strength still existed. So long as she was _non compos mentis_, the restraints would have to be used, for everyone's safety, if not comfort.

Beyond the insistent, soothing commands of the men and women clustered around her and the shriek of angry alarms, a breathless high-pitched whistle came over the speakers, sending a chilling shiver down his spine. It took John a moment to realize that it was Elizabeth—she was screaming almost soundlessly as she struggled, bucking and writhing on the gurney, desperately trying to escape her unhappy tormentors. Watching her panic in her half-waking state, the way the medical staff were forced to roughly pin her to the bed, the half-audible screams and renewed struggle when she saw the syringes… He wanted to throw up, because this wasn't how he had ever imagined her coming home. Even with the evidence right in front of him, he didn't want to know how broken she was, how changed she was by all that had happened.

This wasn't fair, he thought, as she went limp on the gurney below and the alarms were either shut off by the nurses or silenced on their own. This wasn't far to her at all.

With the fight over, the Marines went back to their vacated posts, picking up their dropped ARGs, hastily discarded by the doorway. The men shouldn't have left their positions, but it had been clear very quickly that the medical staff wouldn't have been able to safely subdue her on their own. They had needed the extra help. While Keller checked over sutures, leads and vital signs, her nurses gently secured their patient's wrists and ankles against the locked safety railings. The sound of leather sliding against leather couldn't possibly be audible, but he felt like he heard every jingle of metal and snap of the buckles as they went on. He felt like screaming at them to stop, because this wasn't right, this wasn't remotely right at all— she wasn't supposed to be frail and weak, a broken doll that might never be mended. She was injured, yes, but she wasn't supposed to look like she would shatter with a mere glance, never mind a brief touch.

_What sort of rescue is this?_ John wondered to himself, watching the people below him. _What sort of future is this? Oh Elizabeth, what have we done?_


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

_Regret for things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. ~ Sydney J. Harris_

Karen Clancy, Doctor of Psychology, was no stranger to severe trauma/PTSD cases. Before her recruitment into the Stargate program six months ago, she had handled crisis cases for a variety of military, federal and local agencies. She knew the stakes involved, the treatment protocols and the standard prognosis for early intervention cases. She had talked down suicidal patients, coped with patients in severe denial about their illness, dealt with unsupportive family members and/or administrators, worked with torture survivors and rescued soldiers—she knew very well what humans could do to harm each other, and she knew the limited tools she had to help in healing those kinds of wounds. Since she had found herself in Atlantis four months ago, she had been on a steep learning curve on how to deal with all the quiet consequences of living on a forward-operating base with a sky-high stress quotient. She had learned more about denial and stubbornness in the handful of weeks she had been posted in the city than in all the years since she had completed her doctorate. There were some things about humanity that didn't change, regardless of where a person was in the world, or even the universe.

This, though, the scene before her now…this was going to push her beyond her limits. Karen sighed inwardly and then glanced at her silent colleague.

Her skin washed out in the dim half-light, Keller stood with Karen on the observation platform, her attention focused on her patient. Prominent lines of stress and fatigue marred the other doctor's youthful features and, in the half-shadows where they stood, made her seem much older than her three decades and change. They had been standing in silence for a long while now, but Keller might as well have been spilling her heart's secrets in that entire time for Karen to hear. It wasn't that Keller was thinking loudly—not like Dr. McKay—but the quiet between them was brittle and tense, a fragile illusion of calm that threatened to shatter into millions of jagged crystal shards. Then again, everyone had been working on eggshells for the past few days, their attention always focused on her whenever she came out to give a daily update on her patient's condition.

The entire city had been in uproar for the past four days—Karen had the nearly non-stop counseling appointments to prove it—but the people who most needed a listening ear were also the ones who were most noticeably absent from her appointment book. The people who had been closest to Elizabeth Weir, who had known the woman, who had counted her as a friend—those people weren't talking to anyone about anything, even though their postures screamed that they needed to let their thoughts out, to talk to someone about the chaos they were bottling inside. Even McKay, the only one who showed up in her appointment book, had made a clumsy effort to avoid talking about Dr. Weir and the entire mess that was his guilt about the situation. The way he had brought up the subject and then promptly dropped it as if it was a natural thing to do—that screamed avoidance to her; he might as well have just put a gigantic "I AM ON A MASSIVE GUILT TRIP" sign on his back in bright neon green letters. Still, Karen had let it go. He wasn't ready to deal with it, and until he was, pushing him to go there was only going to be counterproductive. McKay was anything but docile when it came to dealing with personal issues.

Keller, on the other hand, knew that she was in trouble, and that Karen was there to listen, not as a colleague, but as a therapist. So there they were in the late hours of the night, Keller still mentally wandering through whatever minefield of guilt, duty and confusion that mired her, and Karen just waiting patiently for her CMO to talk. That was the one thing she had learned in this job: patience, a lot of patience.

"I don't know what to do," confessed Keller, finally breaking the silence. She continued to stare down at the sedated form in the isolation room. Even in her heavily-medicated sleep, Weir struggled weakly against the restraints, fighting against unseen nightmares. The two-way speaker was turned off, but even if it had been on, her words and cries would have been soundless. None of them knew how long ago the woman had lost her voice; Keller had simply shaken her head when asked, but it wasn't difficult to imagine a variety of horrifying scenarios that had led to this.

A nurse stood by Weir's bedside, quietly soothing her patient's restless sleep. It didn't seem to help in the least. Every touch made Weir more agitated and restless, skittish at images only she could see in her half-conscious state. It was tearing Keller apart inside—that much Karen could tell from her colleague's expression, as the blond-haired woman sighed, "I don't like this."

Sympathy: "No one does," Karen soothed kindly, the words not a lie in the slightest. This situation was pushing at her self-control over her emotions. How anyone could do this to another human being, reduce them to this… There were experiments and studies about aggression and torture, how and why decent people did horrible and seemingly sadistic things to other innocent people…but… She shut off that train of thought and focused on the woman standing beside her. "She's a friend of yours, and it's hard to watch this happen."

Her words unsealed the dam, and the emotions—frustration, anger, sadness, grief, all of it—came bursting out of Keller, "Nothing I've tried works. By all rights, she should be dying, but she's not. She's healing inch by inch, but she's in so much pain, and there's nothing I can do to stop her from feeling every single moment. Every time we touch her, it's like we're hurting her. She's so scared and I can't—" Keller looked like she was trying hard not to cry or scream. "I don't know what to do."

Reassurance: "You're doing your best," sighed Karen, reaching out to lightly put a hand on her colleague's shoulder. Keller doubted her abilities because she felt helpless, and that wasn't productive, for anyone. "I don't think she would ask for more."

"It's my fault she's alive," the other woman whispered, taking in a shaky breath. "Maybe…"

That was a surprise, and it threw Karen for a moment. She knew that there could be some guilt over the medical decision to activate the nanites in the aftermath of Weir's near-fatal accident, but she hadn't thought it would possibly be as deeply-rooted as McKay's. She had two choices in her lap: she could comfort, pushing back the guilt to be slowly dealt with at a later time, or she could push, forcing a confrontation now. It was a risky decision, but Karen felt that she had to go with the latter option. There was no time for later, no time for Keller to brood when her patient's tenuous path to recovery rested in her shaking hands.

However damning the other woman's emotions were, Karen knew that the words had to be said aloud, that the thought had to be completed. If Keller could claim her guilt, it would bring her one step closer to her absolving herself of responsibility for a series of events that no one could have foreseen. It would let her forgive the mistakes she had made to save a life, and maybe eventually let her see the virtue of her decision: Weir was still alive, and to quote Cicero '_dum_ _spiro, spero._' So Karen prompted carefully, "Maybe…?"

The blonde doctor closed her eyes and shook her head vehemently, "It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does, because it's bothering you now, and it's been bothering you since she was rescued."

"You call this a rescue?" she snapped, her voice sharp with rancor and bitterness. She glared at Karen, the furious look in the young woman's eyes daring her to keep on pushing. Used to dealing with hostile patients and knowing better than to take the implied accusation personally, Karen stayed calm as she neutrally deflected the question, "What do you call it?"

Keller shook her head, biting back her emotions, "I don't know, but if this is a rescue, this is one of the most screwed-up ones I've seen." She let out an alarmingly shaky laugh before she almost sobbed, "And I've seen more than a couple that went to hell in a handbasket."

Karen took a step closer to her friend, "What makes you think this won't go well?"

"Oh, let me think," there was a nearly hysterical edge to the other woman's voice, "where shall I start? Is it the physical trauma that gives it away? She should by all rights be dead. No one is supposed to survive a cracked skull, a crushed ribcage or a snapped neck! The scanner shows it all, all the half-healed fractures from whatever beatings she survived, the internal bleeding that should have killed her, the ruptured arteries, the scar tissue.

"That's not even mentioning the things we can't see. I've got the most mentally devastated patient I've _ever_ treated in my career strapped down to a gurney because I can't treat her otherwise. I'm scaring the living daylights out of her and doing God knows what to her sense of safety and security because I can't figure out a way to keep her calm. Every time we approach her, we might as well be stabbing her with knives the way she reacts. She's not eating; she's not sleeping properly—she's terrified and I can't do a thing about it.

"I know it's not my fault that Oberoth was a sadistic bastard, but he was made up of hundreds of thousands of tiny robots, just like the ones in Elizabeth that _I_ helped reactivate because I thought it would save her life and I wouldn't have her death on my hands, except _that's_ turning out very well, isn't it?

"I should have told Rodney, 'no.' I should have objected to it because I know it wasn't what she would've wanted. I would have spared her this. I should have—" Keller choked on her words and finished in a broken whisper, "Maybe I should have let her die."

In the silence that followed, the words hung in the air, heavy with guilt. As if only hearing her statements now, Keller broke down into bitter and furious tears that slid down her cheeks, uncontrollable emotions of guilt and anger sweeping through her. Karen moved close enough to wrap an arm around Keller's slight shoulders in comfort, holding the other woman as she cried. The psychologist let the silence hang, brushing away the stray thought that Keller might be spending time with McKay—her cathartic rambling had taken on a rhythm quite similar to his—and let her friend settle down from the emotional outburst. Karen pressed a handful of tissues into her colleague's hand.

"You're her doctor," she said calmly, once she felt Keller had reached the nearest sort of equilibrium she was going to find on this roller coaster. "You can only change what you do now, not in the past."

"I know." The simple statement was made with utter misery.

"Knowing and _knowing_ are two different things," she continued quietly, "and it's going to take time, a lot of time, before you know the decisions you made were the right ones."

"I'm not sure I can live with the decisions I made."

"You did what you had to save her life; you're doing the same now. She's going to live, and as long as she's alive, she's still got a chance."

"I did what I did to save her…because I felt guilty; I didn't want to lose her. I'm supposed to 'do no harm' and I saved her life. I let her walk out of my infirmary and straight into the hands of the bastards who did this to her. How is could _that_ be keeping my oath? If I hadn't let Rodney active the nanites, she would've never ended up on Asura and we wouldn't be here."

"You don't know that," soothed Karen. "You don't know what would have happened if you hadn't done what you did. You couldn't have possibly known what would happen when you released her. It's not your fault."

"Is it? The brain damage was so extensive… If she had lived, she would have been severely disabled at best…" Keller shook her head. "Maybe that would have been better, better than this."

"But that wasn't the better choice then."

"No, it wasn't." Keller was quiet for a few minutes before she whispered, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

"I highly doubt that that saying applies to a doctor trying to do right by her patient."

With heavy self-recrimination, Keller said softly, "Our good intentions put her there."

"If I've heard the story correctly, your good intentions helped save the city, gave her the choice to help save the city. You didn't make that choice for her; she did."

"But if I had never agreed—"

"Stop," Karen cut her off, the one thing in training she had always been advised not to do. Respect the patient; listen to the patient, because sometimes, the psychologist-patient relationship was the only safe one the patient ever had. But Karen had found that when dealing with people who took on guilt easily and found it very difficult to forgive themselves for mistakes, sometimes a verbal slap in the face was necessary to help them see reality. It worked on Keller. The medical doctor stared at her, a hint of surprise in her eyes.

"We can go in circles about Fate," she told the younger woman, "coincidences, the Butterfly Effect and so on, but you are her doctor and you're trying your best to protect her. If you had truly felt that she would be better off dead, then you wouldn't have fought so hard to make sure those nanites weren't shut down. You wouldn't have stepped in on the Daedalus to help her; you wouldn't have refused to let an EMP generator anywhere near this wing of the city. But you did all those things, and you haven't left her side or given up on her at all.

"Yes, you're angry about what she went through and you feel guilty about what you did in the past. That's perfectly normal and understandable. But this is now, and what I see is a doctor who is devoted to her patient, who is trying everything she can to make things easier and less painful for her. I see a doctor who needs to stop blaming herself for things she couldn't control; you have to focus on what you can do for her now. That's what she needs from you: what can you do for her _now_."

Keller sighed and looked back down, her fingers interlacing tightly. She took a deep, slow breath, calming herself, before she exhaled heavily and said, "I can deal with her physical injuries. The nanites are mainly seeing to that part of her recovery, and I'm doing all I can to help it along, but…" She glanced at Karen, "I can't do anything about her psychological recovery. If there's one thing Earth is going to come after her for, besides the nanites, it's her mental state. I don't know what to do to help her, and the IOA is going to use that as an excuse to call her back to Earth, put her in an asylum and throw away the key. I can't let them do that to her. _We_ can't let them do that to her. I'm sure that Rodney can come up with something, eventually, to modify the nanites so she won't die if we have to shut them off, but…I don't know how to help her…"

Therein lay the problem. Weir needed intensive, one-on-one therapy to even begin acknowledging the entire set of issues that stood between her and normalcy. Someone had to be with her, day and night, ready to deal with whatever surprises sprang up, walking her through the process of accepting what happened and moving her toward reintegration in the city's social structure. It would be a demanding situation back on Earth, backed by a full support staff and fellow counselors, but here, on Atlantis? Karen wasn't sure that she could do it, and that wasn't even taking into account her sinking suspicion that she was dealing with a case of severe, complex PSTD. While some of its symptoms were similar to its original namesake, C-PSTD was a debilitating, chronic illness. It was the type of trauma where there were no known cases of full recovery.

Hating the words that fell from her lips, Karen sighed heavily, "What she needs… I'm not sure I have the time and energy to focus just on her. I want to say yes, but in all honesty, I don't think I could do it, not without risking the health of everyone else in the city."

"If not you, then who?" the other woman asked, her shoulders slumping. It wasn't an accusation, but Karen felt guilty all the same. "I'm nowhere near an expert on PSTD counseling."

"I could do it," a familiar voice said quietly from the shadows of the observation room, abruptly answering Keller's question. The two doctors turned toward the sound of the woman's voice, surprise and then concern passing over Keller's expression in quick succession. Those were the same emotions that Karen knew were probably reflected in her own eyes. Given the third woman's experiences, Karen hadn't expected her to venture down here, but then again, perhaps she should have known better.

With the click of her low heels accompanying her footsteps, Kate Heightmeyer stepped into the dim light that came through the window overlooking the isolation unit. The golden-haired doctor repeated again in a steady voice, "I could do it."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

_Leadership is a two-way street: loyalty up and loyalty down. Respect for one's superiors; care for one's crew. ~ Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper_

Sam sat back in her chair, her lower back muscles protesting the strain from being hunched over her desk for the better part of the day. She sighed, closing her eyes and wondering futilely if her headache would fade. It wouldn't, but she could hope.

There had never been a time that she didn't have the Air Force in her life. She knew what it meant to be an officer, to command and to follow, to serve and to protect. Loyalty meant being dedicated to the people around you, the team that supported you, the family who protected you. A decade on SG-1 had taught her that: family were the ones for whom you chose to sacrifice everything, defended at all costs, and trusted without question. It was how she survived; it was how she lived.

When Elizabeth Weir had come into the SGC all those years ago and told her to sacrifice Jack…Sam had rebelled; a civilian puppet who knew nothing about the chaos that existed beyond Earth's atmosphere had the gall to waltz into the SGC and tell _them_, the experts, how to do things? Fury and duty had driven her to take the risk of blackmailing a politician with powerful connections, and in the end, the other woman had understood. Loyalty was a powerful motivator, one that could only be forged by time and experience, never brought or sold.

What were the loyalties at play now?

She knew what Daniel would say, having been counted for dead so many times and having Ascended twice. He would argue that regardless of the risks and consequences, the moral and _right _thing to do was to defend a helpless woman. He would talk about a higher duty to help others, but in his eyes, she would see that he was talking about being someone's protector, about doing what he hadn't been able to do for Sha're. His eyes would plead, and she would cave.

Teal'c would be practical and wise, pointing out that Weir was no different than a liberated Jaffa, newly freed from enslavement and finding the path to a life of choices, rather than of lesser sacrifices. He would refer to the tenets of honor and responsibility, of protecting those who could not protect themselves. Weir had sacrificed much to save her own people, and there was no honorable reason to fail to honor her now for that choice. He would reason with Sam, and she would agree.

Jack. Jack would give her a _look_ and she wouldn't be able to say no. He was fond of SGC personnel, both past and present, and she knew that he did everything in his power to protect not only Eart(h, but everyone at Cheyenne and on Atlantis, from the backstabbing officials in D.C. and the sleazy politicians on the IOA. It was a role he played with the same finesse that he had employed throughout his military career—a cunning mind and strong negotiation skills hidden behind the façade of a dumb grunt with a dismissive attitude toward everything intellectual. He protected his people, and because of that, sympathized with people who protected their own against selfish, money-counting idiots. She knew that he felt that Weir belonged in Atlantis, had given her heart and soul to the city and its people. He would give Sam a look—the one that reminded her of everything they'd been through together, the times they'd almost died, the times they'd thought the other dead—and then tell her that the city's people had that kind of relationship with the person who had led them through it all.

Sam sighed again and saved her half-finished report on her laptop before closing the document. The weekly databurst to Earth was within a day. The after-action reports had to go out and there would be no concealing information because Ellis couldn't be trusted to keep quiet. She smiled bitterly to herself, betting that it wouldn't be even an afternoon before there was hell to pay from the SGC and the IOA. She could imagine the IOA screaming about security risks. The SGC's reaction might be milder, but Landry wasn't Hammond, and there would probably be a stern lecture about randomly rescuing people who were compromised, if not delivered via video feed, then on her laptop. She wasn't looking forward to either of those reactions.

She was a scientist. She was an officer. She wasn't cut out to be a politician or a bureaucrat. She wasn't a backstabber who played with words and twisted meanings. Jack had faith that she could handle it; she could make the tough calls about right and wrong, black and white in a galaxy where survival twisted everything into complicated shades of gray. She had a made a split-second choice, one that she couldn't regret. It was the decision that had been made for _her_ before, a mercy given that had saved her future, and Sam couldn't _not_ grant that same chance to another person in the same position.

She knew he would back her up on her decision, taking it all the way up to the Commander-in-Chief if he had to, but she didn't know if he would succeed. She knew that D.C. played by different rules and that the IOA had a say in how things were run in Pegasus, even though they knew nothing about the way things were. She had to stand steady at all costs and pray that it would be enough. This choice could cost her career, but… she didn't want to retire from the Air Force with more regrets than she already had on her plate. She wasn't going to let this situation become one of those regrets.

Sam stood up and went to the glass windows of her office, staring at the inactive Stargate wreathed in the moonlight before her. It had a majesty that never failed to take her breath away—when there wasn't an emergency or imminent danger of all of them dying in one horrible fashion or another. She wondered if her predecessor had spent the midnight hours standing in this very spot, pondering the consequences of the choices she had made. Now, more than ever, with a chill running down her spine, she felt that this was _Weir's _office, where the other woman had sat for three long years and commanded people to live or die for the sake of the expedition. The lesson she had first learned on Earth had been applied to the fullest in another galaxy. The woman sleeping in the infirmary had earned the undying loyalty and devotion of an entire city of people, of a unit, of a family of hardass Marines and caffeinated scientists.

Their history didn't matter now. Elizabeth Weir was still an expedition member, and as the leader of Atlantis, Sam had a responsibility to protect her, no matter what.

~*~*~*~*~

3655

It was nearing the end of his shift, yet Chuck wasn't sure if he really wanted to leave his station in the Control Room. For one thing, it would put him out of the loop until he was hopelessly behind on the news. There was too much uncertainty, too many people who were unsettled and too many issues floating through the city right now for him to sleep comfortably tonight. That was, of course, supposing that anyone had gotten any sound sleep in the past week or so, and that was a hypothesis just as viable as the Wraith suddenly all dropping dead tomorrow.

When the news first broke in a hushed whisper from Lindsey, he'd nearly choked on his afternoon coffee. He had to ask her to repeat herself twice before her words really sank in.

Dr. Weir was alive. She was _alive_! His face must have given away the shocked joy that was ringing through him because Madeline had given him a questioning look, and from there the news had spread like a wildfire throughout the city. He could feel the wave of gratitude that swept through Atlantis, thankful that one of their own was found, on her way home, and _alive_.

Dr. Weir was alive.

The quiet celebrations lasted until the Daedalus came into radio contact with the city and Dr. Keller had requested a secure channel to the infirmary. Eager for more information, he had perhaps inadvertently eavesdropped on part of the conversation, but what little he had heard was enough to know something was horribly wrong. As the hours passed after their little armada returned to the city, and there was still no word about Dr. Weir's condition, the expedition fell into a grim sort of silence, buckling themselves down for disappointment and fear. Unfortunately, they weren't wrong.

There was dead silence from the infirmary staff—no one who knew anything of importance was talking about what they knew. Still, this was an entire city full of people who knew how to add two and two together to get four. There were the ludicrous rumors and speculations floating around, but no one took them seriously. What was being spread around the city and could be relied upon as mostly fact was that the prognosis wasn't good. Dr. Weir's injuries were too severe, too extensive to hope that she would survive. Yes, Dr. Keller was a good doctor, but she wasn't Dr. Beckett, not close enough.

There weren't many people Chuck had met who could command the kind of loyalty Dr. Weir inspired in the expedition's members. He didn't know how she had managed to placate the scientists (especially Dr. McKay) while holding onto the respect of the Marines. He had seen her play so many roles, each as the situation demanded it—leader, commander, diplomat, friend, counselor, advocate, and the list went on. She was Atlantis' rallying point. For the 'gate teams, she was the last person they saw before they left and the first person they greeted when they returned. To the Marines, it was a secret comfort to know that someone, with a face and a name, was waiting for them back on Atlantis when they left the city. For the scientists, it was nice to finally have a non-military superior who could fully appreciate higher intellectual pursuits, even if she _was_ from the soft sciences. In times of crisis, there was no question of her leadership, no hesitation in obeying her command because every person knew she cared and that her decisions were never made lightly, never made without thought to consequences and the human costs.

The majority of the city's personnel were fiercely protective of her—she was their leader, the person who had to be kept safe. The scientists promised to keep the city from blowing up or being blown up; the soldiers promised to keep the city from being invaded or taken by hostile forces. When she had been declared killed as a prisoner of war less than a month ago, the entire expedition had plunged into a state of shocked numbness. After all, she was one of the untouchables, the one of the few people in the city who wasn't supposed to make a life-taking sacrifice.

Now here they all were, living the aftermath of her decision to save the city at the cost of her own freedom. It was a roller coaster ride of emotions and events, and they were all too smart to think that it would end anytime soon. The people around him were grim, too wise to the machinations of the IOA and SGC to even hope that there wouldn't be attempts to take her away from them again. Chuck knew if any brass or politician tried to have Dr. Weir sent back to Earth, there would be open revolt from the civilian population that might, just possibly, be wholeheartedly supported by the military contingent.

No one on Atlantis wanted to take any chance that the IOA would ship Dr. Weir to an asylum, or worse, Area 51, and throw away the key. If an expedition member had been in the same situation that she was now, she would have never stood for them being taken away and forgotten. Atlantis' people knew that, and with that knowledge, they were standing firm against the howling winds of official disapproval that would soon come. He knew they weren't the only ones who would fight to keep Dr. Weir safe. He glanced at the glass-walled office just a few yards away, staring briefly at the blond-haired woman who kept watch in the night like her predecessor, ceaselessly working to protect the people underneath her from the manipulations of narrow-minded fools on Earth.

There would be a long, drawn-out battle with the higher-ups over what was going to happen next, and he knew that the city had to be prepared for anything. In order to do that, though, he needed a decent night's sleep. If he didn't get one…he could still hear Dr. Weir's fond admonition for him to go off shift, even as she worked through the night. Even though she was nowhere near him now, he left the Control Room quietly, heading off to bed.

Tomorrow, Chuck knew, the fight would go on.

3659

~*~*~*~*~

Steven found himself standing in the deserted mess hall of his ship, staring out at the vivid streaks of color that flowed past the window-like structure. It was nearing 0300 hours on the Daedalus' time cycle and he couldn't sleep. There were too many thoughts chasing each other in angry circles in his mind.

For all the moral challenges that the Pegasus galaxy could pose to a person, it was the political complications on Earth that gave rise to his insomnia. The IOA would be furious with him; he had very little doubt that the committee would challenge his decision _not_ to kill Elizabeth on sight or treat her as a prisoner of war. He didn't think they would be sympathetic to the fact that the woman in question had been bleeding to death in front of him. All they would see was that he let a security risk compromise the safety and integrity of his ship, and they'd come after him for that.

Of course, he was painting the IOA as a bunch of heartless, bean-counting whiners, but they hadn't exactly endeared themselves to him in the past. The fact that he had been taken _hostage_ by a fucking Goa'uld symbiote for the better part of a year and it was the symbiote, _not_ him, that tried to destroy Atlantis, hadn't stopped the IOA committee from hauling him in for a hostile interrogation and then afterwards, recommending him for court-martial for treason and espionage. Yes, he was still a _little_ resentful about that particular memo. He knew that Generals Landry and O'Neill had told the IOA where they could shove _that_ suggestion.

He knew that the SGC wouldn't be completely happy either. There were strict procedures that he should have followed, and unspoken guidelines about what he should and shouldn't have done. It was one thing to see to it that rescued personnel received prompt and proper medical treatment, even if they had been compromised. It was another to purposefully keep a fellow Air Force officer in the dark about a possible security risk until the man himself noticed that something was up. Steven had pushed the line between acceptable and unacceptable, challenging of the way things were done, and he should have felt guilty about his deception of not only Ellis, but also his own crew.

"Should" being the operative word, but he didn't. Not if he was honest with himself.

The primary unspoken rule in the Stargate program was that you protected your own. When something went wrong off-world, your teammates hauled you home. When something went wrong Earthside, your superiors protected you until they couldn't, and then they turned a blind eye to let your team step in to save you. That was the code all of the program's veterans lived by; it was what they trusted without question.

He had seen his share of Trojan horse tricks and heard the stories about duplicitous "damsels in distress." But seeing Weir, bleeding to death on the floor of _his_ bridge, _knowing_ that she had survived a fatal accident only because she had active nanites in her and probably still did…Steven couldn't have given the order to kill her. Because that was what discharging an EMP would have done: killed Weir. He couldn't have done it. At that moment, on his ship, staring at her still body, he didn't even have to look at his crew to know that if he had given that order, asked Carter or McKay to build a EMP and use it, he would have lost his crew's respect and trust in his leadership. He knew that if he had made the other choice, Weir's blood would have been on his hands, and he didn't want that haunting him for the rest of his life.

So he had essentially abused his power and station over a subordinate officer to fabricate and perpetrate a lie. Carter and McKay were geniuses beyond scale, and he had very little doubt that even on his battle-damaged ship that there weren't any lack of the proper materials needed to build a portable EMP device. There were going to be questions about that—why hadn't they built one? Why wasn't one brought along as a contingency? He almost wished that he could drag McKay with him in front of the committee. Steven smiled a little to himself at the idea of the acerbic scientist verbally dicing the IOA bean-counters into tiny little pieces; McKay had an ego the size of a small nation-state and had no qualms about reducing everyone else's to the size of quantum quarks.

Peering into the depths of his mug of chamomile tea, he sighed to himself. If the Air Force ever found out that he had essentially fabricated a lie in front of his entire crew and gotten a lower-ranking officer to go along with him… All it would take would be one engineer or technician to speak up, not to buy into the massive silent conspiracy that he had set into motion and they'd all be hanged—hopefully not literally, but most certainly figuratively.

Still, what choice did he have? He could either have treated Weir as an enemy and/or a person of dubious alliance, or as he had done, as a human being, a respected equal to his station. He hadn't always agreed with her, but he knew how important she was to her people, how Atlantis unquestioningly looked to her as their leader. Weir had inspired the sort of rare loyalty that could only be earned through tears, sweat and blood. She was important to all them, in some way or another; the least he could do for her was to give her a chance, and he had. He'd given Keller a chance to step in and save Weir's life. Again. He sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that he had insisted his ship be the one to transport the away team to and from Asura; who knew what Ellis would have done if Weir had been beamed onto the Apollo instead?

The more important question, though, was what was he going to do now? There was no way around reporting Elizabeth's rescue to his superiors, not with Ellis—

Steven froze, half-surprised by his traitorous line of thought. Almost automatically, he took a sip of his tea, feeling the lukewarm liquid slide down his throat as he turned the thought over in his head. Ellis was the unknown factor, ironically the one player in this conspiracy who could be trusted _not_ to keep silent, to be _un_trustworthy of vital secrets. It was odd, thinking of a fellow officer as an adversary, but it was true. Steven had heard the rumors and mutterings in the months following Weir's capture about the confrontational showdown she had had with Ellis over a preemptive strike on Asura. The other man had not endeared himself at all to Atlantis' residents by disrespecting Weir's position as their leader and disregarding her opinions about the plan itself.

Ellis had failed to recognize that while Atlantis was officially an outpost of the Stargate program, it was not _merely _a military base, and Weir was _not _a figurehead leader to placate the civilians. The scenario of being so isolated from Earth and surviving in a hostile galaxy for an entire year without any sort of outside support had solidified the bonds of trust and cooperation between the city's military and civilian populations, and both sides unquestionably looked to Weir as their commander. That sort of loyalty was the kind that had to be respectfully acknowledged and handled, not trampled all over with arrogant mistrust and sharp accusations of incompetence.

So what now? Steven had taken the first step in protecting Weir from IOA backlash, but what was the next step? He could stop, let Atlantis' people take care of themselves, as they always had and would. He didn't have to take on the entire responsibility of deflecting trouble from the bureaucrats. The problem with that option was that he had to stay firm with his story, and in order to do that, he would have to get more involved in this web of partial-truths until it would stand up under harsh scrutiny. There was the option of walking away, dumping the blame entirely on Carter who, after all, was the one had who responded in the negative to his deceptively innocuous question. He knew that it had been done before by far less scrupulous superior officers, laying disastrous decisions entirely on the shoulders of those they were supposed to protect, but he wasn't that kind of a soldier or person. He had started the story and now he had to figure out how to finish it. Was he going to drop the matter entirely, or was he going to stay on Atlantis' side until the end?

He inwardly scoffed at himself. Who was he kidding? He had already made his choice. Now, he had to live with it.

Standing alone in the mess hall of his ship, Steven wondered if he could do it.

~*~*~*~*~

Evan was a highly competent United States Air Force officer who skillfully carried out his duties without unnecessary fuss. He was known to be calm and logical in a crisis, a quick thinker in rapidly escalating situations, and a decent strategist when it came to executing missions. He was an indispensible part of the senior command staff and frequently conspired with Zelenka, Ryan and Jameson to make the bureaucracy on Atlantis flow slightly more smoothly. He was a patient man, well-liked and respected by the scientists he supervised and the Marines he commanded. He didn't lose his temper easily and rarely expressed frustration out loud.

At the current moment, alone in his quarters in the wee hours of the morning, Evan wanted to bang his head against the wall.

The reason for this urge primarily stemmed from the extremely agitated databurst that had arrived three days ago from Earth, following Atlantis' weekly databurst the previous day. To say that the IOA was upset would be to say that the Wraith were merely misunderstood in their feeding habits. The committee had Colonel Carter at attention for the better part of twenty minutes, thoroughly dressing her down for gross incompetence in letting a security risk into Atlantis, as if Dr. Weir was freely and randomly wandering around the city. Despite the fact that the conversation was supposed to be confidential, the precise details of the IOA's temper tantrum had managed to find their way onto Atlantis' grapevine before lunchtime, and by nightfall, the majority (if not the entirety) of the city was on one side of the argument. It didn't take a genius to figure out which one.

Still, even with the backing of several hundred people, Colonel Carter looked exhausted these days as she fended off the political bloodsuckers. Evan knew from the daily morning briefings and from gossip that Sheppard wasn't doing much better. Ronon was beating up Marines like crazy, Keller was still sleeping off four days of back-to-back shifts, Jameson was beginning to look frazzled by her responsibilities, and McKay was biting heads off left, right and center. The only person on the senior staff who appeared to be handling this situation with any degree of equanimity was Teyla, and he _knew _that she was the one who had decapitated the training mannequin with her bantos rods. The Marines needed some outlet for their frustrations, and they weren't getting it. The civilians were feeling particularly helpless and that never led to anything good…

Hell, the entire city was pissed off at Earth, and for good reason. Atlantis was very used to handling situations like this by themselves, and outside interference was _not _looked upon kindly. Evan had heard of a dozen plots of revenge floating through the science department alone, and he had seen enough "creative retribution" in the past from the 'geeks' and 'nerds' of the city to be seriously worried. After catching the end of a highly unsettling plan involving paperclips, the ferret-like creatures found on P5X-449 that were being studied in the Zoology department, and two canisters of baking soda, he had sent up a half-hearted prayer that no IOA committee members decided to come to Atlantis in the near future. He wasn't sure he could entirely guarantee their safety; some of the mutterings had been that vindictive.

Still, he couldn't say that he didn't share in some of the fury himself. The IOA was being completely unreasonable, demanding information that no one—except a highly traumatized, voiceless woman who was under heavy sedation—could give. So far, the committee hadn't made any noises about having Dr. Weir sent back to Earth, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time. When—not if—that demand came, Evan knew that the tension in the city could explode into outright rebellion if Earth pressed too hard. There were already rumblings about possible "situations" that could happen to shut down 'gate operations, including a massive computer failure, Atlantis' OS mainframe crashing, the main dialing crystal being swapped with a broken one, or simply "vanishing." It was something that he would have to bring up with Sheppard, and soon. The time to defuse the situation was running out. There were only thirteen days left before both the Daedalus and the Apollo reached Earth and both Air Force Colonels would go before the IOA committee to present their reports.

Evan had a feeling Atlantis had made a semi-willing ally of Caldwell through long-standing familiarity alone, but Ellis… he was the wild card. It wasn't exactly like the man had made the best of impressions on anyone in the city, especially going after Dr. Weir as he had during their very first meeting. Ellis also hadn't helped matters by cutting McKay down to size—though Carter's firm reprimand of the man had been a quiet affair, the news had spread like water running downhill all over the city by the end of the day. It was one thing for one of McKay's minions (and everyone who lived on Atlantis was a minion) to talk about deflating their CSO's massive ego, but it was another for an outsider to actually do it. To say that Ellis was not well-liked by most Atlantis personnel wouldn't be too far from the truth. On the other hand, he wasn't familiar with how things worked around the city, the unspoken rules that governed interactions between civilian and military. Evan could only hope that with time, Ellis would learn how to deal with the crazy orderliness in which Atlantis and its people functioned. It would certainly help ease his headache.

He sighed. It was late, and he needed to get some sleep before another, more urgent crisis arose. With the Colonel distracted by, yet also oddly detached from, the entire situation with Dr. Weir, the primary responsibility of keeping Atlantis running smoothly had fallen onto Evan's shoulders. Nearly everyone knew that Sheppard spent the majority of his off-duty hours in the observation room in the infirmary, doing more paperwork than he had probably ever done in his entire tour as the city's CO, while he kept watch over the city's first leader. As a result, Evan dealt mostly with the practical, daily issues of morale and troop discipline—two areas that Sheppard usually handled on his own. It was a bizarre role-reversal of sorts, but since it was Pegasus, Evan knew it could be so much worse. For one thing, it could have been literal role-reversal, as in body-swapping…

Evan shook his head, sternly reminding himself not to tempt Fate as he thought the lights of his room off. Pegasus stopped for no one, not even a city full of angry and worried people. Damage control would have to wait for the morning.

~*~*~*~*~

Abraham stared into his steaming mug of coffee as he sat at his desk and wondered what he was missing from the big picture. There had to be some clue or piece of information he didn't have that would explain the odd roadblocks he had stumbled into during his last two days on Atlantis. The people in the city hadn't been openly hostile to him, but he could tell from their behavior that he was given deference only because of his rank, not because he had earned their loyalty or respect…not like Dr. Weir apparently had.

He shook his head, contemplating the entire fucked-up situation. On one hand, there was Dr. Weir—first leader of Atlantis, not at all meek when it came to her beliefs, declared KIA roughly a month ago—who had been, through sheer chance, rescued from the hands of her tormentors and was now recuperating at a safe, top-rate medical facility. It was a miracle that her subordinates were celebrating, because there weren't many happy endings in Pegasus. He had to confess that a part of him was rejoicing with them; he always did when a soldier came home.

On the other hand, there was Dr. Weir—imprisoned and tortured for over seven months, having survived God knew what—who was possibly compromised and had to be treated as a security risk until further information was available… and no one seemed to give a damn about the issue. When he had brought up precautionary security measures during the first debriefing, Keller had looked about ready to bite his head off, and no one seemed to disagree with her. Neither Carter nor Caldwell backed his suggestion that maybe an EMP generator should be placed in the infirmary wing, just in case there was a nanite outbreak in the isolation unit. Sheppard had just given him a bland "screw you" look before rattling off an entire set of decent (but still inadequate) containment protocols. Abraham didn't understand how a city full of genius, part-time hypochondriac scientists were _not_ panicking about possibly being infected with thousands of tiny robots, and he really didn't comprehend why his fellow military officers seemed so damned unconcerned about it too. Carter, Caldwell, Sheppard and Lorne were all veterans of the Stargate Program and had to know full well the kind of nasty surprises that could come from seemingly innocent people. The SGC's mission reports were full of stories like that, yet when he brought those examples up, he was always politely ignored by his peers.

If he didn't know any better, he'd say that the entire city, senior staff included, was drawing battle lines of Us versus Them, and _that _was unsettling—especially since he had the distinct impression that he'd been firmly shoved into the "Them" camp. It wasn't like he wanted to harm Weir in any way, but everyone seemed to think that he would kill her himself if they let him near her.

If he even tried to venture near the infirmary, a technician on the Apollo would radio in a possible problem in the ship's diagnostics that he had to take care of immediately (and nearly all of those calls were false alarms), or Atlantis' transporters would mysteriously lockdown or redirect themselves to destinations on the other side of the city (and Dr. McKay had fobbed off the issue on one of his subordinates until he himself had been locked inside one of those transporters, so maybe there hadn't been deliberate tampering on anyone's part). When he had managed to make into the infirmary to see his men, Abraham could almost swear that the entire nursing staff was keeping tabs on him. He knew it sounded paranoid, but he had noticed that his crewmembers were placed close to the front of the infirmary, the furthest location from the entrance to the isolation rooms, and that there were always at least two nurses doing rounds when he was visiting. It seemed as though he was never left alone when he was in the city. The surveillance made him jittery.

Then there was the silence. On any military base, the only thing that traveled faster than the speed of light was gossip. In a city of only a few hundred people, the rumors about Dr. Weir's condition should have been flying all over the place, but they weren't. As far as he could tell, and his own officers could hear, there was nearly next to nothing on the grapevine about her recovery. There was satisfied talk about extracting fair revenge on the Replicators, and some mumbling about the IOA committee being assholes, but either there was no information being leaked out of the infirmary (which was impossible, in Abraham's opinion) or his entire crew was being shut out of Atlantis' grapevine, marked as outsiders to the situation. The latter was probably the more viable explanation for why he knew next to nothing about Weir's health, besides the daily radio briefings that Keller had given. People were gossiping, but just not to the Apollo's crew.

He knew that they were talking to the Daedalus' people, though, and that Caldwell was… Abraham didn't want to accuse his senior officer of any wrongdoing since, technically, Caldwell hadn't broken any laws of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but there was just this impression that the older man knew more than he was letting on. Maybe. He wasn't sure, and he wasn't the kind of officer or person who would make that sort of accusation without any kind of proof. Until he had solid, irrefutable testimony to back up his claims (and he knew Caldwell wouldn't be so stupid as to leave a trail of evidence behind), all Abraham had were his suspicions and his opinions on how things _should_ have been handled.

The honest truth, though, was that he didn't know how he would have reacted if Dr. Weir had ended up on the Apollo's bridge instead of the Daedalus', if her life had first landed in his hands rather than Caldwell's. Would he have made the same decisions as the other man had? Or would he have acted differently? It was rather disturbing to realize that he didn't know the answer to those questions.

His doorbell chimed and he straightened in his chair before calling out, "Come in."

One of his lieutenants walked into the room and saluted crisply before he stood at attention and said, "Colonel Ellis, we've crossed into the Milky Way. The SGC requests you contact them immediately."

The news wasn't a surprise, though the timing was a bit fast. He had been expecting this summons since the day he had left the Pegasus galaxy. Abraham stood up from his desk, his cold coffee still untouched. "Thank you, Lieutenant Caple. Dismissed."

The young man nodded crisply and left the room. Abraham sighed heavily to himself, gathering the papers on his desk into their manila folder. He knew what he would tell the SGC when they asked about Atlantis.

He had to do his duty. He didn't have a choice.

~*~*~*~*~

Someone was singing softly to her, a gentle lullaby that brushed the edge of her consciousness. It was a song that was faintly familiar, strains of an idyllic childhood lifted in the sweet caress of a smooth voice. There was a promise of soaring, breathtaking heights, dancing among the stars of the universe—untouchable and safe from harm. She was there, laughing with companions she couldn't see, swirling through time and space, when life was both simpler and just as complicated as it was now. Music cradled her, lulling her into security.

The smooth slide of bow against string reminded her of the deep, serene ocean of Lantea, with the gentle wash of the waves against Atlantis' piers, the incessant soft roar of the sea filling her mind. The airy dance of a flute spoke of windswept balconies at the dawn of the day, midnight conversations under a full moon, and moments full of tantalizing potential, just out of her reach. The steady beat of light drums echoed a heartbeat, the soul of a city drifting on the water, the pulse of a people wondrous and gifted, the fluttering rhythm of a person's life, counting out the minutes and days of a lifetime.

She didn't fear its seductive call. The music was simply there—its presence steady and comforting. The tune neither smothered nor pressured her to yield; it existed for her to take as she chose, a gift laid at her feet, a warm blanket covering her cold soul, a safe haven from the storm.

For the first time in months, Elizabeth's mind let its guard down, and she slept.

* * *

**Author's Note:** First off, thank you to everyone who has put this story on their story alert/favorites list. I know this isn't a short story to read (it certainly wasn't one to write!), so thank you for sticking with me through these chapters. Second, there were some questions about Kate Heightmeyer's presence in this story. The simple explanation is: "Well, since it's AU already...why not?" The more complicated explanation is that, in this timeline, Kate has had a very _very_ bad couple of months. Her story is introduced in the next chapter, and continued in the sequel to this story (though I can't make promises as to when I'll have time to write and post it.) Finally, thank you to those readers who have left reviews. I'm thrilled to hear that so far, you're all enjoying the story, and I do apologize for the cliffhangers ;) I am also sorry that I haven't been readily available to reply individually to questions/reviews. I'd love to enter into conversations with readers, but I've been buried, more or less, under a pile of textbooks for the past few weeks. Well, my study break is over and I'd better get back to my books. I'll see you around!


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

_If I can stop one heart from breaking  
I shall not live in vain;  
If I can ease one life from the aching,  
Or cool one pain,  
Or help one fainting robin  
Unto his nest again,  
I shall not live in vain._

_~Emily Dickinson_

Kate knew her attention was wandering during the last counseling session before she was released back to full-duty, and she knew her own therapist knew it as well. Karen sat back with a small smile on her face, the one that conceded amused defeat, and said, "I'm not even sure you're in the same room with me today."

"Sorry," she apologized, dragging her mind away from the DSM-IV-TR's definition of C-PTSD and its differentiation from PTSD. So far, all she had was one-way observation of the situation to formulate a diagnosis, and that was a risky call to make without initiating direct communication with her patient. While she would never tell Rodney this, psychology _was_ an inexact science, balancing facts and emotions in a delicate dance to help people find normalcy in their lives. Karen just shook her head again with a smile, accepting the apology before asking, "What are you thinking about?"

"What I need to do," responded Kate. "The full plate I'm going to be dumping on your full plate. McKay."

Karen laughed, "Don't worry about it. I know how to handle him."

"Has Colonel Sheppard told you about the lemon trick?"

"Those two… They could start an entire field in the study of resolute denial."

Kate suppressed the urge to giggle; it wouldn't be professional. "Quite possibly. Yes."

"So I'll see you in a few days?"

"I'll give you daily updates by radio," recited Kate, going over the support system they had hammered out over the course of several late nights, "and then briefings in person once every other day." She gave the other psychologist a questioning look. "You do know that's only going to end up happening once a week, right?"

"Yes," responded Karen, "but for the sake of the IOA, we're going to pretend that it won't."

Kate nodded silently in agreement. The brunette smiled gently. "It's going to work. Don't worry."

"I'm not," she responded almost automatically and then inwardly winced.

The start of her counseling sessions had been like this, a verbal game of cat-and-mouse as she had steadfastly stonewalled Karen's attempts to get her to talk. The brunette would pose a question or a reassurance to an unspoken concern and Kate would either brush it off or pretend it was the truth, even when it was most patently not. For two people in a profession that carried a noticeable stigma among the majority of Atlantis' population, it had been rather odd that the women hadn't bonded quickly with each other and had, instead, warily circled around each other for the better part of two months before Karen managed to convince her patient and fellow psychologist that there was no hidden agenda about her role in Kate's recovery progress.

"You sure?" pressed Karen gently at the answer, and Kate shrugged, "As sure as I'm going to get."

She paused, wondering if she wanted to wade into the potential quagmire that her question might open up. Group therapy and the reaffirmation of a social support network were extremely important steps in treating complex PTSD, yet Kate didn't know who she could draw upon to form that support group for Elizabeth. Well, she had her own sneaking suspicions, but she also needed to make sure that she wasn't going to introduce destabilizing elements into Elizabeth's recovery. People who were having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that Elizabeth was back in Atlantis…those were precisely the type of people Kate wanted to avoid.

"Don't answer this if you feel that you can't," she began carefully, and Kate instantly saw her colleague's guard go up. Hypotheticals and disclaimers tended to make any medical professionals wary, since those usually preceded fishing attempts for confidential information about their patients. Over the course of her career, Kate had heard numerous variations on the same phrase she was uttering now, and the majority of those requests were nowhere near innocuous or well-meaning. "I was just wondering if you've talked to Colonel Sheppard, or seen him talking to other people."

Karen arched an eyebrow, repeating with a gently sarcastic edge to her voice, "Talking to other people?"

Kate responded with a flat look, "You know what I mean."

"Oh, I know what you mean, but really, 'talking to other people'?" teased Karen before she said seriously, "Not really. I know his team has been sitting together for the past couple of days, and he's been acting normal, if a little quieter. He hasn't come to talk to me, but then again… I'm still considered new around here." She shrugged. "He probably doesn't feel comfortable with me yet. Dr. Weir's rescue has…well, I don't think it would be a violation of confidentiality to tell you that almost no one has started dealing with the emotional fallout. I don't think he's talked about it with anyone, not even his team, and the nurses say that when he's not on-duty, he's in the isolation room."

"Oh," Kate hadn't quite expected that last bit. She knew that John and Elizabeth had been very close friends—most of the command staff were, given the nature of their responsibilities—but she hadn't foreseen that. "Does Jennifer know?"

"I don't think Kell—" Karen caught herself in the slip, "Jennifer doesn't have the energy to argue with him. She's already sicced Rachel onto him, and if he doesn't start sleeping soon, Teyla will be next. I figure once the yelling stops between the IOA and Carter, he'll calm down."

"That could take a while," she pointed out. The brunette shrugged, "We'll see."

"How optimistic," remarked Kate diplomatically and the other woman smirked, hearing the veiled sarcasm in those two words. The expression on her friend's face cleared, though, and Karen took in a discreet steadying breath, an action that Kate had learned was one of the other therapist's little tells when she was preparing to ask or do something potentially dangerous. No one, except another psychologist, would probably ever notice the giveaway action. After all, their profession required them to read the silent body language of their patients until the skill was as natural as breathing, and Kate was very good at her job.

She waited patiently, letting the silence comfortably settle, because there was clearly something on Karen's mind. The other woman was probably trying to work up the courage or tact to ask. They were good colleagues, but not enough time had passed to let the two of them relate as trusted friends who could speak freely with each other without fear of accidental offense.

"Kate…why are you doing this?" asked Karen, and the golden-haired woman knew that her colleague wasn't asking as her therapist, but as a concerned friend.

It was a logical question too; there was an entire list of reasons why she, of all people, shouldn't be doing this, the first and main reason being that she herself was still coming to grips with almost being killed in two separate events within the short span of two months. No one, not even a trained psychologist who spent the majority of her time listening to other people's struggles with mortality, could be prepared for that kind of intense emotional backlash. In the past three months, Kate had probably spent more time in the infirmary than she had in the entire four years she had been on the expedition, and it wasn't even as a medical professional.

Her recovery was behind her now, though, and she was certified to return to duty. There was no question that she was ready to get back to work, but no one would ever imagine asking her to counsel and supervise the treatment of a highly traumatized, possibly unstable, patient as her first case. It was a ridiculous suggestion, especially since Karen was present and available to handle such a volatile situation.

But then, there were the handful of reasons Kate felt that she had to try.

She had learned firsthand the helplessness that came with being a patient, being completely dependent on the vigilance and compassion of others to get through that next second. It was the kind of deep and unquestioning trust that she was fairly sure Elizabeth didn't have at the moment; she couldn't have had that sort of trust and survived while in captivity. But there was always the chance that, with a lot of time and patience under intensive therapy, Elizabeth might find that depth of faith again. After all that Pegasus had thrown at all of them, Kate thought it was worth the effort to try again, to hold onto nothing but blind hope, and just try to save a life.

She stared at the other woman for a moment, attempting to formulate her answer in a way that her colleague could understand without messing up her point.

"There's a poem by Emily Dickinson," she finally said, knowing that the other woman was a closet poetry-lover. She recited from memory, "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; if I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain."

Blue eyes met brown and Kate explained steadily, "She's a human being and a friend. I'm still here. Why _not_?"

Karen looked at her for a long moment and then nodded slightly. "Then if you need anything, you know how to reach me."

"Just a call away?" teased Kate lightly as they stood up from their respective seats. Walking her to the door, Karen shook her head slightly, a small amused smile twisting her lips, before she responded in all seriousness, "Not even. I'll see you tomorrow morning?"

"Yes, I'll be there." The two women hugged briefly in farewell. "See you, Kate."

"See you later, Karen," she said, stepping out into the deserted corridor. It was nearly noon, but today was also lasagna lunch, as in real lasagna shipped from Earth. So people who would usually be going about their daily business in the city were all gathered in the mess hall, unless they were completely absorbed in their work or on duty.

It was why Kate allowed her mind to drift as she went back to her quarters, intent on finishing the latest publications about possible treatment strategies for complex PTSD. It was an extremely new distinction between traditional and complex versions of the trauma-induced disorder, so available information was on the scanty side, which was neither reassuring nor helpful. Kate wanted to remember as much of the literature as possible before she lost access to her reference books. She also turned over Karen's information in her mind, matching it up to what she remembered of John and Elizabeth's interactions.

Kate knew that she shouldn't have been as surprised as she was by the news. Honestly, a person would have to be blind, deaf and dead to _not_ realize that John and Elizabeth had had sparks flying between them for the better part of three years. Sometimes those sparks had everyone in the vicinity diving for cover, and other times, it made people wonder when the two of them would shut up and kiss each other, for goodness' sake. Since she was neither blind nor deaf, and thankfully not dead, Kate had watched their relationship shift from merely polite colleagues to close friends to …to something she wasn't sure she wanted to name, even to herself.

By any standard, John and Elizabeth had been an intense pair of leaders to work around—both were fiercely independent, passionate about their duties, and carrying a cartload of baggage that they willfully denied existed. It had made some of her counseling sessions with them individually extremely "interesting" for a wide variety of reasons, and made the mandatory joint ones (specifically, after the Phebus/Thalen fiasco) rather…revealing. There was the possibility that the word "explosive" could also have been used to describe the highly-charged discussions she facilitated between John and Elizabeth. There certainly had been the awkward moments when one of them said something that the other wasn't expecting and that had Kate wondering why the hell the two of them weren't together already like half the city's betting pool said they were (the other half of the city's betting pool was putting odds on the first Weir-Sheppard baby). Still, she was Atlantis' psychologist, not the resident matchmaker, so she refrained from giving any sort of active advice that might have pushed John into pursuing a relationship with Elizabeth or vice versa. That sort of interference was Miko's unofficial job.

Then Elizabeth had been captured by the Asurans, and any speculation about a relationship between her and John stopped being harmlessly amusing. Kate knew of at least three fistfights that had started when people, seeing the idle gossip as highly disrespectful, reacted negatively to continued talk about the two city leaders' love lives. Those long months had passed under the heavy storm clouds of constant uncertainty in nearly all facets of everyone's lives. The appointment of a military commander to Atlantis had been a rude awakening to some people about the IOA's influence on how things were done in the city. Other people spiraled around depression, fearful for their safety and that of their colleagues as missions went wrong, experiments failed, and all of those ominous events seemed to trace back to Elizabeth's capture. The atmosphere in Atlantis had shifted, and while it was no fault of Carter's, people had felt…lost. For most of the expedition, it was just too many losses, too close together to take. The war with the Asurans shifted into high gear, the Athosians went missing, an alien entity had gotten loose in Atlantis, then there was the memory-wiping epidemic that could have killed them all…the seemingly endless list of near-catastrophes went on. There were days of awful clarify when Kate felt that the city was doomed to fight a failed retreat, trapped in a hopeless situation with death closing in from all sides. She knew she wasn't the only one in the city who had shared those feelings.

From her hospital bed, she had observed people coming in and out of the infirmary. Kate saw that John had turned darker over the months that Elizabeth had been gone, more solemn and grave as he went about his duties. People had looked to him for guidance in Elizabeth's absence, and he took that responsibility very seriously. She suspected that it was because he supported Carter that the transition went as smoothly as it did. It wasn't that people didn't respect Carter's qualifications to run Atlantis, but on the matter of trusting this woman to protect their lives and cherish their loyalty, scientists and Marines alike had turned to John to be their judge of character. He had held them together on the frantic exodus from Lantea, willingly putting in more hours and more work than anyone else to make sure that they didn't lose more people than they already had. It was because of his raw willpower, combined with the deep loyalty that expedition members had for each other, that Atlantis had survived as intact as it had.

Even today, Atlantis' people were still slowly digging themselves out of the wreckage of their self-confidence and sense of security in the galaxy. It was going to take time before things reverted to or settled into a status of "normal" again. Elizabeth's return had inspired hope, yes, but also reintroduced the element of instability into people's lives, and for the people who had grieved over the news of her death, it ripped open raw wounds that had only just started healing.

So absorbed in her thoughts, Kate failed to see someone appear in her path, and it was only when she bumped into a solid body that she realized she wasn't alone. A pair of strong arms steadied her balance and John smiled politely at her when she looked up. "Careful there, Doc."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, taking a flustered step back from him. "I wasn't paying attention."

"It's okay," he said casually, tucking his hands into his pant pockets. His laid-back attitude didn't fool her in the slightest. There was a nervous tension hiding in the lines of his shoulders. "I wasn't paying too much attention to where I was going either." There was a pause, and she could see him gathering up his courage to speak his mind.

"Actually, since we're here in the same place and all," he gestured between them with one hand, while the other hand came up to rub the back of his neck in his own version of a stress tell, "do you mind if we talk?"

"That's fine with me," she said, her medical training kicking in and telling her that something was up. John was a private person who preferred to deal with emotional fallout on his own. He came willingly enough to post-mission sessions when things went seriously wrong, and he didn't shy away from introspection completely, but he was skittish on some subjects, topics that he absolutely refused to talk about in any detail whatsoever.

For him, Elizabeth was one of those taboo issues. Any discussion of their relationship was always firmly focused on the professional. However Kate always saw hints of deeper emotions in his words, especially when it came to ensuring Elizabeth's safety. Still, she never pressed the topic, knowing that if she even brushed against the idea that he cared about Elizabeth as more than a friend and colleague, John would immediately retreat or change the topic entirely. Today, though, Kate had a feeling that something had changed. He wanted to talk with her, and she could only think of a handful of reasons that he would seek her out, of all people. She was also finding it a stretch to believe that he'd just "appeared" in the hallway right after her longstanding appointment with Karen, especially considering that tomorrow morning, she was going to sequester herself with Elizabeth 36/7 for an indeterminate period of time.

John glanced up and down the empty hallway before looking back at her, smiling bravely. "Can we talk somewhere private?"

"Of course," she said easily, gesturing to the nearby balcony entrance. Kate saw him hesitate before he nodded in agreement, and she kicked himself for not thinking that he would associate balconies with Elizabeth. If he was already this skittish about talking with her, then Kate needed to provide him with a neutral space to talk, not an area that was loaded with memories.

The door to the balcony slid open as they approached, letting a blast of wind carrying the strong scent of the sea rush into the city. He graciously gestured for her to step out onto the terraced platform first and she suppressed the shiver of fear that raced through her as she moved past him. This was real, Kate sternly reminded herself. She could trust John with her life. She _did_ trust him with her life on a daily basis. He would never hurt her, not willingly. There was no reason for her to panic. Nothing was going to happen to her. Still, Kate chose to stay away from the balcony's railing, sticking as close as she could to Atlantis' sturdy walls. _Wonderful suggestion, Kate,_ she scolded herself, _absolutely bloody wonderful idea, coming out here!_

The sun was warm on her skin and she focused on keeping her breathing under control. She wasn't going to panic and bolt for the safety of the city's walls. Over, she chanted to herself, the dream was _over_, had been over for months. She was okay. She was okay, damn it, and not having a bloody panic attack right before she was going to talk to someone about her most important patient. Damn it.

Drawing on years of practice, Kate buried her emotions deep in her heart, clearing her mind to focus on the task at hand. She smoothed out her expression into her practiced mask, warm and patient with just the slightest touch of anticipation, as she turned to face John. He stood at a short distance from her, just within arm's reach. He reached up with his left hand, probably to rub the back of his neck in one of his nervous gestures, and abruptly stopped. He stuffed his hands in his pants pockets to keep himself from fidgeting. She tried not to smile at his transparent attempt to not give off more signals than he had to about his current emotional state.

They stood in silence for several minutes. She was used to the quiet between them. It was how their sessions together had always started. He would start talking in his own good time.

John finally stated, "Keller tells me that you're going in there tomorrow."

"Yes," she said calmly.

He met her eyes for a moment, their gaze locking. "You think this will work?"

She gave him an honest answer. "I don't think we have any other choice."

John nodded once, the gesture sharp and stiff, before he broke eye contract and stared at the smooth metal of the platform. He rocked back and forth on his feet a few times, clearly struggling to make some sort of decision that he wasn't used to making. He wasn't by any means lacking in confidence, but there were always some choices that made even the most confident of people uncertain of themselves. Kate continued to wait.

"There's—" John tugged something out of his pocket and held it out to her, the warm sunlight playing over the delicate silver chain. "If you think this might help…"

Kate's eyes flickered up to meet his, instantly reading the apprehension in his eyes. She carefully took the necklace from him, feeling the warmth of the small weight in her palm. She wondered how long he had carried that with him—since Elizabeth was taken or maybe even longer?

"It belongs to her," he said, his voice stubbornly casual when this situation was anything but. "I think she should have it back."

She nodded slowly. "I'll give it to her."

The look of gratitude that slipped through his professional mask for the briefest of moments made her breath catch. It was something she was both supposed to and not supposed to see. In that moment, she understood that there had probably been a lot that she didn't know about John and Elizabeth's relationship, things that they kept very quiet about, things that she was never supposed to know. It changed everything, and it changed nothing.

She smiled at him, letting her gratitude show clearly in her expression. "Thank you."

He tilted his head at her in a questioning gesture, confused by her words. "For what?"

"For caring," said Kate simply, and she hoped that he understood more than she was saying. His lips curved slightly before he said, "Just try, Kate. That's all I'm asking."

"I know," she responded quietly. "I'll do my best, promise."

He nodded again before the flyboy mask he presented to the world slid back into place again, "Do you want to grab some lunch, Doctor?"

Accepting that the impromptu session was over, Kate smiled pleasantly and inclined her head in agreement. "That sounds like a wonderful idea. I hear they're serving lasagna today in the mess hall."

As they walked back into Atlantis' vaulted corridors together, John told her, "Supposedly, Corporal Carmine is going to prepare his mother's special recipe for the entire city."

"I look forward to the demonstration," she responded sincerely, steering the conversation into the typically bland and neutral topics of life in another galaxy.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

_The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. ~ Confucius _

"_It is Elizabeth's birthday soon, is it not?"_

_At Teyla's unexpected question, John nearly dropped the slender vase he was studying as the two of them stood in the open air market. He had been considering it has a birthday gift for Dr. Brown._

Katie, _John corrected himself, now that she and Rodney were dating…sort of? He wasn't sure about the precise details and Rodney had been surprisingly private lately about what was going on in his relationship with the botanist. What John did know was that Katie's birthday was coming up next month, and knowing Rodney, the man wouldn't even _think _about finding a gift until three missions before the date. Knowing the team's luck, chances were high that those three missions would be to either grassy uninhabited worlds or planets with hostile natives. Since he only put up with Rodney's flailing fits when he had to, John figured that he would head off this social crisis at the root by simply being prepared. Of course, he'd have to come up with some way to present the vase to Rodney as a possible gift for Katie without the genius actually realizing it…Maybe he could enlist Teyla's help?_

"_Do you think this would make a good gift for Dr. Brown?" he asked, holding the object out to Teyla who took it from him with careful hands. She studied the spring-green vase, rotating it slowly in the morning light to examine its imperfections. When she found imaginary flaws in the beautiful clay vessel, Teyla mock-frowned in disapproval. Finished seeing to her latest customers, the merchant hurried over to Teyla's side, eager to make another sale, and the two women instantly fell to haggling over the vase—Teyla pointing out the flaws in its craftsmanship, the woman refuting every claim that she could. John became a spectator at the edge of the conversation, reduced to the role of a dumb male security guard for a skilled negotiator. He didn't mind being ignored; it freed him to pay full attention to their surroundings._

_All around them, merchants hawked their wares—earthen pots, farming tools, hand-woven fabrics, livestock, food and so on—to the throngs of people that roamed the wide open space. It was unusual to see hundreds, if not thousands of people, gathered in one spot, unconcernedly drifting from one stall to the next, their main worry being the price of the goods they sought to obtain or the profits they hoped to make. The scene around him could have easily been the same as market-day on Earth during the medieval age, and he allowed himself to relax as he waited for Teyla to conclude the transaction._

_The people's sense of security came from a confluence of factors: mainly that their Stargate sat at the bottom of a very narrow canyon with high walls, facing the foot of a steep mountain that was prone to massive rockslides and avalanches. Dezia was a world of rock-hewn paths and sheer drop-offs, known for its terraced rice-farming, hand-woven sheia-wool fabrics and quarry mining of precious metals. Its people lived in the solid stone, chiseling out tunnels and hidden chambers to provide storage areas and sanctuary from nature's fury and the Wraith._

_Because of its rugged terrain, Dezia was a natural site to host a biannual trade fair that attracted merchants from all over the known network of Stargates to congregate and conduct massive business transactions. Through generations of trust and connections, what had begun with the assembly of a handful of Dezia's most trusted trading partners had turned into a mass gathering of merchants from worlds all over Pegasus. People came to find exotic wares and view rare objects on display in various stalls, alongside the mundane and necessary items needed to survive in a harsh galaxy. For security reasons, attendance was always by invitation only from an already-participating world, and the date of the next trade fair was moved by days, weeks or months to avoid a noticeable pattern. John and his team had come last year due to Teyla's knowledge of such an opportunity to find allies and willingness to vouch for the "homeless Lanteans" to the Dezian people._

_There was also another reason for the traders and shoppers' sense of safety, and that was in the location of the market itself. It wasn't quite an "open space" in the traditional sense. The area was surrounded on three sides by towering solid cliff-faces. During the mission briefing, Teyla had told them that the hard rock concealed an extensive tunnel system that served as an evacuation route in case of unwanted visitors. It was thanks to this hidden network that more people survived than died at these fairs when the Wraith came. In Pegasus, that was no minor miracle._

_Teyla and the merchant woman bowed to each other with polite smiles. She walked to his side, her hands cradling the vase's cloth-wrapped form. Tucking the item away in her pack, she remarked, "You did not answer my question."_

"_What question?" he asked innocently, as the two of them began moving through the crowd again. He randomly picked a stall at the far end of the row to drift towards. She gave him a distinctly unimpressed look when she repeated herself, "Elizabeth's birthday."_

"_Oh, yeah, it's soon, isn't it?" He tried to go for casual, but judging by Teyla's expression, she wasn't buying it. Instead, she said matter-of-factly, "If you were to select a gift for Elizabeth, I for one, would say nothing of it to Rodney, nor to anyone else."_

_He knew he had said nothing about it to anyone, not even a hint, so he stared at her for a moment before he blurted out, "How did you know?"_

_She smiled_ that _smile—the secretly pleased grin, her version of the Cheshire Cat's smirk—and he knew he wasn't going to get an answer out of her. So he guided her through the crowds of people until they were at a stall tastefully decorated with an understated elegance. That same simplicity of beauty was found in its wares—necklaces, bracelets, earrings and other assorted pieces of intricately-made jewelry were neatly laid out on a table. When he saw them, the proprietor of the stall stood up from his stool, pressed his palms together and bowed. "Colonel Sheppard, the sword has been kind to you."_

_Ignoring Teyla's questioning look, John mimicked the gestures as he responded in greeting, "Eris, the fire has been kind to you as well." Recalling that the Wainan people were followers of a strict set of rituals governing introductions, he gestured to his teammate, "This is my fellow sword-wielder, Teyla Emmagan of Athos."_

_She gracefully copied the craftsman's movements, saying, "Blessed greetings to you, Artisan Eris."_

"_Blessed greetings to you as well, Teyla of Athos," the middle-aged man responded with perfect solemnity and politeness as he bowed again. Eris turned to John and said with approval, "You choose your allies well. The people of Athos are wise beyond measure."_

_Recalling all the times that Teyla and the Athosians had stepped in to save the city from starvation or to prevent a fatal misunderstanding, John nodded in agreement, "Yes, they are. We are very thankful to have them as friends."_

_Gesturing toward the table of jewelry, Eris turned his attention back to Teyla. "Please, feel free to look at what we have to offer. If anything pleases you, we will speak of a trade then." She nodded, her attention drifting toward several bracelets that dangled from a display stand._

_The artisan motioned for John to step around the main table, and he felt, more than saw, Teyla's surprise when Eris turned to his traveling chest and carefully drew out a flat box wrapped in silken cloth. Undoing the leather strap and unfolding the fabric, he revealed a container of polished dark wood. Offering the jewelry box with both hands and another bow, Eris transferred the intricately hand-carved item into John's possession. With trembling fingers, he opened the lid and this time, he heard Teyla's low gasp of surprise. John turned to her and asked nervously, "What do you think?"_

"_May I?" she asked quietly, coming around the display table to stand next to him, and he nodded, passing the jewelry box into her hands. She stared at the elegant necklace nestled on a piece of silken cloth, admiring the perfect silvery-blue jewel that sat in the center of a stylized version of Atlantis' home symbol. After a moment of silence, she looked at him and smiled approvingly. "She will be speechless."_

"_You think so?" he asked, feeling a wave of relief wash over him. Teyla nodded, with a shy smile at Eris, "The artisans of Waina are widely known for their skills in the craft. Every commissioned piece is forged from the soul. Might I ask what was folded into this necklace?"_

_Eris smiled tranquilly. "There are not many who are as learned as you are, Teyla of Athos, and therefore, fewer to speak of such secrets. However, you are Colonel Sheppard's fellow sword-wielder, so I may tell you. My son carved for Safety, my daughter set for Peace, my wife linked for Love, and I forged for Wisdom, all for a woman dearly cherished by her people." He looked at John, "It was possible to tell, you see, from your drawing."_

_John stared at the other man, because while he had designed the necklace, he hadn't seriously thought it was that obvious he was the one who'd drawn the rough sketch he had given to Eris. The artisan looked at him knowingly, "It was the thought you put into every line that gave you away. You care deeply for this woman, do you not?"_

"_Yes," he said carefully, not wanting to say more than he wanted to confess, even to himself. Eris nodded. "Then you should know, for the future, that many a man has given his love a gift such as yours: a gift of the heart."_

_John swallowed past a suddenly dry throat and nodded. "Thank you, Eris, for the advice." He wordlessly reached out for the jewelry box and Teyla carefully closed the case before handing it back to him. Eris stepped forward and, with practiced, economical movements, rewrapped the box into its snug travel wrappings before handing it back to John. Perhaps sensing that he had crossed an invisible line with his words, Eris pressed his palms together in front of his chest again, "You are always welcome in my home and to my family."_

"_Thank you," said John sincerely, relaxing slightly since they were drifting away from dangerous emotional waters. "The same goes for you; you're always welcome to contact the Athosians if there is trouble. They know how to reach us."_

_Eris shrugged in quasi-acceptance of the repeated offer and then looked curiously at them when John's watched chirped once in warning. Teyla and he exchanged a look; they had promised Ronon that he would only be stuck babysitting their techno-genius for three hours and it was going to take time to make their way back to the Dezians' main living tunnel systems. John quickly slipped the cloth-wrapped box into his own pack. There no need to pay Eris, since all commissioned jewelry had to be paid when the request was first made._

"_Artisan Eris," said Teyla regretfully, "I am afraid we must rejoin our teammates and meet with the Dezian elders for the noonday meal."_

_Escorting them to the edge of his stall, Eris smiled benevolently and inclined his head. "I understand. My sister-son is a councilor's apprentice for my people as well. There are duties that must supersede our fondest wishes." He pressed his palms together again, this time in a cue for farewell. "May we meet again soon; until then, may your swords be kind to you, Colonel Sheppard and Teyla of Athos."_

"_May your family and you remain in safekeeping within the flames of your forge," said John, hoping that he had gotten the traditional farewell correct, as all three of them bowed to each other. Judging by the gratified look on Eris' face, John felt certain that he had, for once, gotten all the diplomatic moves right with a trade partner. With a quick wave, John and Teyla merged into the crowd of people and the Wainan stall vanished from sight._

Until the pendent was gone, John hadn't realized how accustomed he was to having the light weight in his pocket. It had become a talisman for him, a piece of her that he kept close as a reminder of what she needed him to do in her absence. He hadn't realized that in the months she had been gone, he had gotten used to randomly slipping a hand in his pocket to tangle the silver links of the necklace's chain in his fingers. He missed that small comfort now as he stood watch yet again over Elizabeth.

The two-way radio crackled to life and the Marine guard on duty said respectfully, "Sir, Dr. Heightmeyer is requesting permission to enter."

Although John suspected that the other man must have been bored out of his mind on such a dull detail, the younger man kept his tone professional over the open radio channel. Silently grateful, John responded briskly, "Permission granted."

Without any ceremony, he cut the audio feed from the isolation room, leaving only the visual feed running. John sat down on a high stool, radio in hand, watching as the pair of Marine guards withdrew from the isolation room, leaving Heightmeyer alone with Elizabeth. Until the counseling session was over, he would stay in his spot as a monitor, always at the ready to summon the medical staff or Elizabeth's security detail if needed. He didn't like the job, but he'd rather it was him than someone else doing this. It felt voyeuristic, maintaining visual surveillance over something that was supposed to be highly private, but it was a necessary part of the compromise that he and Lorne had hammered out with Heightmeyer when she had raised the issue of doctor-patient confidentiality for Elizabeth's sessions.

No one had been comfortable with the idea when Heightmeyer had first brought up the fact that she needed to be alone with Elizabeth for extended periods of time. Even Keller, a staunch advocate for Elizabeth's well-being, had given their staff psychologist a _look_ that John had interpreted to be the medical profession's equivalent of the "what the hell?" expression that he occasionally caught on new Marines' faces when a patently unorthodox battle strategy was laid out in pre-briefing.

No one seriously thought that Elizabeth was a threat to Atlantis, or to any of them, but they all agreed that she was a terrified woman who was buried in justified paranoia about anything and everything around her. Until they could break Elizabeth out of her "fight or flight" mentality, they had to treat her as a danger to herself and others. That meant the restraints had to stay on until Heightmeyer was sure that Elizabeth was aware enough of her surroundings to not harm herself or anyone else. Keller had agreed to cycle the doses of Elizabeth's medications, gradually weaning her patient off the heavy sedatives. In return for being left alone with Elizabeth, Heightmeyer agreed to a security detail at the ready in the hallway and a visual observer in the observation area above the isolation room, just in case anything went wrong. No matter how much any of them hated the precautions they were taking, John knew that he had to prioritize Heightmeyer's safety over Elizabeth's at all costs. Their emotions didn't matter when it came to their responsibility to protect each other from danger.

Of course, in Heightmeyer's tenth session, the psychologist had released her patient's restraints and was promptly shoved to the floor when Elizabeth suddenly bolted for the door. Lorne had been on-duty at that time, and the younger man had quickly called in everyone to subdue Elizabeth by essentially overwhelming her with unyielding force. Once she was back under sedation and in restraints, Heightmeyer had retreated to her temporary quarters with Karen for about an hour. Keller had then been called into the room, and all John could swear to was that there were spurts of intense conversation between the three women for the next two hours or so. By the time all three medical professionals had come out to talk with everyone else, Heightmeyer had managed to convince her colleagues that the day's event was only a minor setback and that nothing would change. When she had stressed the need for no repercussions on Elizabeth's situation, John could have sworn that Heightmeyer's eyes were fixed on him, asking him to back her up.

So he did.

With everyone motivated by the best of intentions, the resulting argument among the senior staff over what to do next had been passionate. John had never thought that Heightmeyer had the core of sheer willpower that she had demonstrated during the course of the debate; she had always presented a neutral personality to him in the past. To see her passionately make a case to keep Elizabeth on the same regime of medication, continuing the sedative reduction plan as if nothing had happened…that was a revelation of sorts. John had chosen to trust her that day on the balcony, when she had promised that she would do her best to help Elizabeth. After that argument in the crowded back room of the infirmary, John _believed_ Heightmeyer when she insisted that progress was being made—incrementally yes, but it was still happening. He held onto the hope Heightmeyer had offered that day, and he knew that they all were.

John watched as Heightmeyer settled herself on the high stool next to Elizabeth's bed, having already made her opening greeting to a silent Elizabeth. It was the same routine, over and over. Heightmeyer had explained to him that it was vital to provide Elizabeth with a world of stability, where her life became predictable to the point that when changes happened, it was because _Elizabeth_ chose to change the situation and no one else. It would allow her to draw the clear correlation between her own, self-motivated action and the change in her routine. The treatment of C-PTSD, Heightmeyer had explained in more detail than he had been expecting from her (especially since it was verging on breaking doctor-patient confidentiality), focused strongly on giving the patient back a sense of control over her life. If Elizabeth was convinced that she lived in a construct, then she had to be convinced that either she controlled the mental reality she was stuck in or that she wasn't trapped in a false reality. Either option would give Elizabeth a temporary sense of safety until Heightmeyer could securely ease her into the knowledge that she _was_ safe and living in the real world.

He leaned back in his seat, one hand resting on the two-way radio, and settled in to watch the rest of the silent counseling session. It looked like it was going to be a long one. That didn't matter. He had the patience to wait for Elizabeth to realize that she was safe and forever free from Oberoth.

John just prayed that he wouldn't have to wait forever.

~*~*~*~*~

She was here again.

There was no telling how much time, or how little, had passed between one visit and the next, but the vivid hallucination was back, walking into the spacious prison cell with the same imperturbable serenity that Elizabeth remembered surrounding the blond-haired woman. Elizabeth wished that Oberoth hadn't managed to get his hands on her memories of Kate, managed to capture the other woman's professional warmth, which had coaxed and tugged some of her deepest fears and thoughts out into the light of day. She fought to remind herself that this was an illusion, created to break her down and lull her into false security. She wasn't going to fall for it. She wasn't going to give _him_ the satisfaction of knowing how deeply it upset her to see Kate's face every time and know that it wasn't real, that she wasn't safe and never would be again, so she stayed stubbornly silent. Whatever happened, whatever he did to her, Elizabeth vowed never to utter a single sound.

She wished she could return to the darkness where there was no time. The lights in the room brightened and dimmed on a diurnal cycle, mimicking the natural light patterns of a planet. Her body was falling into the rhythm of waking and sleeping to a sky she couldn't see. There was nothing she could really do about that small physical betrayal of weakness, but she tried to stay up as late as she could and faked sleep for as long as she could. It was easier that way, ignoring the same rotations of nurses who spoke quietly with her, putting on smiles and kind words to confuse her, who pleaded with her even as they did things that _hurt_. But then there would be darkness afterward, where she was safe, until she woke up again, still trapped in the same false dream that would not fade.

The hallucination perched itself on the high stool by her bedside and loosely folded its hands in its lap, its serene expression an exact copy of Kate's comforting gaze. She closed her eyes and turned her head away, trying to wrest control away from _him_, the puppet master, and take charge of this messed-up reality for even just a moment. She willed the hallucination to vanish. Time faded to a slow trickle before she heard the soft footsteps of a woman sliding down a stool to stand on a smooth floor. The firm pressure against her right wrist came a moment later, followed by the sounds of leather being drawn through metal. The padded restraint slackened and the pressure disappeared. She didn't have to open her eyes to know where the hallucination was, moving around her in a wide circle, methodically releasing her bonds before taking the same path back to its original seat.

It was only then that she dared to move, opening her eyes and sitting up, drawing herself into a ball on the bed. She didn't press the advantage—she had tried once before and failed, miserably. Guards and nurses had flooded the room before she even had a chance to hit the main player in _his_ delusion, yanking her away from fake-Kate's prone form, and pinning her roughly to the floor. She had fought in silence, furious and desperate to get free, but no matter how hard she threw herself against the illusion, not one of her imaginary captors disappeared. In the tussle, she had blacked out in a wave of ice and woken up where she had started—tied to the bed, staring up at the high ceiling.

Thinking about the attempt in the following days, when she wasn't steeling herself for the retaliatory attack that was sure to come, she remembered two things: one was false-Kate's voice, stubbornly insisting above the chaos that they not hurt her, and the second…that they had been gentle in their handling of her. There was a control in their motions that spoke of dedication to a higher cause, the way they treated her hinting at a commitment of doing no harm. It almost made her believe that it was real, that the people around her were _her_ people, that she was back on Atlantis. Almost. She wasn't that weak, not yet. Soon, yes, but not yet.

So she continued to live in a world that was mostly spent chained to a gurney, unable to move, visited regularly by nurses who never touched her unless absolutely necessary, and the main actress in _his_ little drama. In the barricaded corner of her mind that he had not yet breached, she fretted over the lack of consequences. It was a surprise that nothing had come of her gross miscalculation other than bruises where they had held her down and medicines that made her feel constantly exhausted, and even those two consequences were fading. She had noticed that before it appeared, the nurses were giving her an increasingly weaker dose of sedatives—or maybe she was gaining some control over this scenario. It made for clearer thought processes, but did nothing to help her figure out how to best _him_ at his own sick game.

Her arms and legs now free, she immediately pulled herself into a ball on the gurney, twisting the sheets uncomfortably around her ankles. She rested her face against her kneecaps and stared at fake-Kate, daring it to make a mistake. The mirage took no offense at her anger; it merely sat there, serenely staring back at her with a carefully non-judgmental expression on its face. It looked and behaved so much like Kate.

It was getting harder and harder to ignore the hallucination, to believe that this was just another twisted ploy. She was so tired of games. She longed to let her guard down, but she knew the moment she faltered, _he_ would have won. She couldn't let _him_ win; she wouldn't give _him_ that satisfaction. So she had to fight, but now…she was beginning to doubt, to wonder if she could stop, and that was her one weakness. She wasn't sure she had it in her to believe that this rescue was real, to take the chance that it wasn't just another clever trick to wear her down and break her. It would be easy to believe, but the disappointment…she was terrified it would crush her and she wasn't sure she could handle the despair without surrendering herself. She couldn't take that risk.

She had to admit, though, if this was false, then this reality was the most elaborate one she had encountered in the course of her games with _him_. _He_ had never been patient with her: always pushing, sometimes stalling, never retreating. In this place, however, the hallucinations never demanded anything of her, not in terms of information. What demands they made of her usually ran along the lines of coaxing her to eat more than the mouthfuls of food and drink she allowed herself. The nurses were polite and talkative, telling her what they were going to do, warning her if they were going to touch her, smiling sympathetically at her when they finished their duties before leaving her bedside. Fake-Kate had all the patience of real Kate, and the two of them—prisoner and mirage—had spent more time together in silence than in actual conversation. Come to think of it, fake-Kate had only spoken a handful of words, and most of them had been during her disastrous breakout attempt. She wondered if she was going slowly insane.

Fake-Kate reached out with one hand, extending palm up and leaving it hovering a few inches away from Elizabeth's bare forearm. It was an unspoken offer to let her react, to push away or to accept whatever sort of help (poisoned or not) from the hallucination. She knew if she didn't do anything, it would carefully rest its warm fingers against her arm and they would stay there until it decided it had stayed long enough to make her think that Atlantis _was_ real around her, before drawing away. Still, there was always that pause, those seconds of a tantalizing opportunity to change the rules of the game. What would happen when she finally reached out? What would be the consequences?

~*~*~*~*~

"Good morning Elizabeth," said Kate, moving unhurriedly into the room. She ignored the shuffle as the Marine guards vacated the room, leaving her alone with her patient. Instead, she approached the bed in the middle of the room as if she were looking for a seat in the cafeteria, drifting toward her destination without actually hurrying. She sat down on the high stool next to the gurney and folded her hands in her lap. Keeping her breathing slow and even, she fixed her eyes on the far wall, letting Elizabeth adjust to her presence in the room.

One, two, three…

In the beginning, Elizabeth reacted violently whenever Kate stepped into the private, secluded area, struggling almost frantically against the reinforced restraints, her movements uncoordinated from the high doses of sedatives running through her system. While Jennifer guessed that her voice had probably healed within the first three weeks of her recovery, Elizabeth's efforts to get free were always soundless except for the incessant rattling of the gurney's safety railings. Elizabeth would strain against her restraints until her strength was exhausted. Then she simply glared at Kate, a bitter challenge in her eyes. It hurt every time Kate had to watch her friend wear herself out, fighting even when there was no longer a reason to fear.

…sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…

Jennifer and Karen fretted for her safety whenever Kate did it, and had put up one hell of a fight when she'd first brought it up again, but she insisted that once her patient calmed down, the restraints came off. The less time Elizabeth spent feeling helpless, the faster she was going to be able to adjust to the possibility that she was safe. Oberoth probably had her tied down, doing God knew what to her, during her imprisonment; the last thing they wanted, as medical professionals and as Elizabeth's friends, was to recreate that torture chamber in Elizabeth's mind. The restraints had to be a "use only when necessary" part of Elizabeth's treatment plan, not something that stayed in place until they were absolutely sure their patient was stable. Yes, the older woman was technically _non compos mentis_, but Kate knew they had to take the risk that underneath all that pain and fear, Elizabeth was still there, still aware of what was going on around her, and still capable of rational thought.

It was going to take a long time for Kate to forget the _looks_ that her colleagues leveled at her when she made that argument. Still, she had remained steadfast in her convictions, even after Elizabeth had attacked her. It had taken a lot of fast talking on Kate's part to keep her own counselor from stripping her of her work clearance and throwing her into a padded room for an involuntary psychiatric evaluation. Perhaps Kate had played dirty, or maybe she was just making sure she could continue doing her job, but she had used everything she knew about Karen to get the other psychologist on her side. The core of her message—besides the fact that keeping the restraints on for longer than strictly necessary did more damage in the long run—was that after having been declared clinically dead twice in her life, Kate wasn't afraid of a few bruises or broken bones if Elizabeth managed to attack her. The blonde was pretty sure that if she said those words to anyone who had never lived on Atlantis, or even to Karen three months ago, she would have been immediately sedated, committed and placed on suicide watch. But this was Atlantis, where people looked out for each other at all costs. Statements like that, while rarely so bluntly said, were an unspoken facet of life in the city.

Still, Kate knew that the night nurse who brought the next dose of medications would probably have to put Elizabeth back in restraints again. It was a vicious little cycle that none of the medical staff had any idea how to stop. They had learned quickly that Elizabeth did not accept being drugged with any degree of passivity. Any procedures that involved skin contact or syringes usually resulted in a short, but furious struggle. Elizabeth always lost, and Kate had no idea if her patient's constant failure in her attempts at independence was detrimental to her efforts.

… thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two…

There was rage in the icy stares that her friend leveled at her, a furious defiance that Kate had rarely encountered in her years of practice. It was unnerving, the level of hate directed at her, but Kate didn't take it personally. If Elizabeth thought she was trapped in a game of Oberoth's, then she had to see Kate as a hallucination, the enemy. It meant that Elizabeth felt like she could trust no one, which was a problem only time could resolve.

Still, the passive, yet venomous, resistance Elizabeth put up against what she thought was a mind game gave Kate hope that her patient was going to pull through this struggle. If Elizabeth was still angry about being manipulated, it meant that she was still fighting, still defiant in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. There would be productive ways Kate could help Elizabeth channel that anger when the time was right, but that time was far into the future. Right now, it was a game of waiting, of patience. Kate had called on her training, on the serenity she had earned through long hours of meditation, to let herself remain unruffled, even in the face of Elizabeth's anguished pain.

…fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven…

Nowadays, Elizabeth simply ignored her when she walked in. There might be little giveaways—a sideways glance, a small twitch, or a slight tremor—that she was paying attention, but nothing more. That could be counted as progress, even though she still wasn't interacting with her environment. Elizabeth was aware of the routines that had been established in her life—that had been the first step. Now they all had to wait for her to take the next step, to do something that would break the regular schedule for her. But that step had to happen on Elizabeth's own time. All she and Jennifer could do was to be patient and wait. Kate had to have faith that it would happen.

She sternly reminded herself of that every time the doubt crept in. That statement had become her calming mantra throughout these weeks, and Kate hung onto her knowledge of the stubborn woman Elizabeth Weir was, and still had to be. They would get through this—doctor, patient and city—_together_. There was no other choice.

… seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six….

There was also the issue of Elizabeth's physical recovery. That had been slow. The only explanation that Rodney and Radek could come up with was that the nanites functioning within her now were also older and thus slower to work. Kate didn't really care to know the technical details; all she cared about was the general health of her patient. Elizabeth had a look of sheer desperation about her, stubbornly clinging to her defiance as her last line of defense. She seemed to grow frailer with each passing day, and it wasn't just in terms of psychological health, but physical as well.

Kate would have asked that Jennifer stop her tests and monitoring, but she saw Elizabeth's chart for herself every day and she knew there was no escaping the need to watch her physical health closely. Their patient was hovering very close to a line etched in concrete; the moment she crossed it, Kate's protestations and concerns would be secondary to Jennifer's orders. Kate was afraid that she was running out of time.

…eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one…

There were murmurs about putting in a feeding tube if Elizabeth's condition continued to deteriorate. She rarely ate, and when she did, it was in bites and sips, barely enough to sustain any sort of normal metabolism. If Kate didn't make a breakthrough, get Elizabeth to trust them at least enough to eat, and do it soon…

The psychologist forced herself away from that train of thought before her emotions could spill over into her demeanor. If Kate panicked, then she might as well just slap Elizabeth and get the subsequent breakdown over with. She had to stay calm, no matter what. If Elizabeth's inner reality was still in chaos, then Kate had to do her best to keep the outer reality around them both as stable and tranquil as possible.

…ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.

Carefully telegraphing her motions, she leaned forward with her left hand and gently trapped Elizabeth's wrist against the railing. With her right hand, she undid the Velcro and padded buckles, loosening the contraption. She moved around the bed, never going out of Elizabeth's line of sight, releasing her from the four-point restraints that kept her from moving freely about the room. She returned to her seat by Elizabeth's bedside, settling her hands loosely in her lap as before.

As always, Elizabeth did not move at all until Kate sat back down. The dark-haired woman carefully pulled her freed hand back, warily watching Kate for any sudden movement. The psychologist had lost count of how many times they had sat in this room and repeated this ritual, but still, every time, Elizabeth showed the same degree of passive watchfulness, as if she was afraid that Kate would lash out at her violently.

When Elizabeth was completely free, she immediately pushed herself into a sitting position, pulling her knees up under the covers. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her forehead on her kneecaps, tucking herself into a little ball. In the beginning, at this stage, they would simply sit like that for hours, the silence between them stark yet cloistering.

For the past month or so, Kate had gently pushed the boundaries between them, carefully testing what her patient could and couldn't handle. The first was touch, with a gesture that was completely innocent and non-threatening. She always made sure that her hands were warm when she reached out to Elizabeth and, furthermore she never moved her hand toward Elizabeth's face. If there were latent associations with Asuran mind-probes (and there had to be), Kate didn't want to even try to start dealing with that mess.

So once Elizabeth was settled, Kate counted to ten before she leaned forward, offering her right hand to her patient. It was passive encouragement for her patient to interact with the people around her without applying any sort of pressure. The gesture lingered in interpretation between a brief pause and an open-ended offer. So far, Elizabeth had never taken the silent opportunity to initiate contact, but she never resisted when Kate then slowly rested her fingers on the back of her hand or arm. The two of them would then sit in stony silence until Kate felt that she was pushing Elizabeth too far. The signs would be physical—a slight lean away from Kate's hand, Elizabeth's fingers tightening on her own arm, increased tension in her shoulders. When Kate saw those indicators, she knew the session was over. So she would leave Elizabeth's personal space, verbally thanking Elizabeth for the session. There was never a visible reaction from Elizabeth—positive or negative—about any of this. Kate hoped that it didn't mean there was no significance for Elizabeth, just that she didn't show it.

Today, as she always did, Kate offered her hand gracefully, hovering a few inches from actually touching Elizabeth's skin. What she didn't expect was for Elizabeth to release her death grip on herself and reach out, fingers trembling in the air. She held herself still until she felt Elizabeth's cold skin against hers. Unsure of how skittish her friend was, Kate slowly curled her fingers until she was holding her patient's hand in a loose grip. To an outsider, merely holding hands with another person was a trivial gesture, but in Elizabeth's case, it was progress, positive progress that she was going to be okay.

Kate was filled with silent triumph and relief, but outwardly, all she did was smile slightly. This was a wonderful sign, but she didn't want to make a false assumption and push too fast.

"Thank you," she whispered in a low voice once she was sure that Elizabeth wasn't panicking. The other woman didn't react, just curled herself smaller on the bed, and oddly enough, tightened her grip on Kate's hand. It was as if Elizabeth was clinging onto her as a lifeline, and Kate squeezed back as hard as she could, trying to communicate the fact that no one was going to leave Elizabeth again, that everyone on Atlantis was there for her, and that she wasn't alone in her struggle.

They sat there, doctor and patient, fingers interlaced as the minutes ticked on. Kate didn't dare do anything other than breathe and wait; she didn't want to break the spell. It seemed a little surreal that her plan had paid off after weeks of waiting. Yes, this was a small step forward, but it was still forward, and that counted.

Eventually Elizabeth eased her grip and Kate felt the tingling in her fingers at the restored blood flow. Her patient also leaned slightly away and it was clear that Elizabeth wanted the session to end. So Kate slowly slipped her hand from Elizabeth's, sitting back in her chair for a moment and taking a breath to savor the breakthrough. She didn't want to linger too long, though, afraid of breaking the fragile foundations that had just been laid.

So with her usual grace, Kate stepped down from her high stool by Elizabeth's bedside, folded her hands in front of her, and said quietly, "I'll be back later, Elizabeth. If you need me, just call the nurse on duty."

Elizabeth stared blankly ahead of her, her shuttered eyes giving nothing away, but for the briefest of moments, the psychologist thought she might have spotted a hint of uncertainty in her friend's eyes. As she walked out of the room, Kate hoped that her patient was beginning to question the faulty axioms of her constructed reality, for all their sakes.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

_Doubt thou the stars are fire  
Doubt that the sun doth move  
Doubt the Truth to be a liar  
But never doubt I love._

_~ Hamlet (Act II, scene ii)_

John watched as Kate held out her hand, a familiar object resting in her palm. He watched the psychologist's lips move in a familiar sequence of syllables and he found himself whispering the name she was calling:

"_Elizabeth?"_

_He stepped out onto the darkened balcony, the twilight fading fast into the warm night, calling her name again. A dim figure stirred and turned toward him, the faint illumination from the Control Room casting a soft light on her familiar features. She moved toward him with a welcome smile curving her lips. "How did the mission go?"_

"_I thought you'd said we'd debrief tomorrow," he teased. She arched an eyebrow at him, amused by his antics, but pretending not to be. He smirked, "We've got new friends. Ronon managed to shut Rodney up long enough that the Dezians are in complete awe of his genius with technology, yet not enough to actually want to keep him."_

"_John!" she rebuked without any heat behind it. They both knew that Rodney wouldn't seriously mind the characterization, and if their resident genius _did _have a problem with that assessment…well, John would find out about it very quickly if his shower went suddenly cold tomorrow morning. So John smirked a little, to show that he was joking, and then moved on to his real answer, "The Dezians seem trustworthy. I think, if we ever need a place that has natural defenses against the Wraith, they'd be open to letting us keep our non-essential personnel there until the Daedalus can get here. Of course, it's not an Alpha or Beta candidate site, and we'll have to do another thorough screening once we get the negotiations done. I don't want a repeat of Manara."_

_She let out a long, weary breath and looked back out at the sea, "Good." Knowing that she was quickly sinking into dark memories (he was too, of Kolya's voice over the radio, the three words that froze his heart and drove the trained covert ops soldier to the fore of his mind—John yanked himself away), he took a deep breath and went for a lighthearted note. "Teyla had a lot of fun, shopping around and making more trading connections. We've got an invitation to go trade for purple oranges in two weeks."_

"_Again?" she questioned with amusement in her eyes when she glanced at him. The gesi fruit was common on a vast variety of worlds in Pegasus and was pretty much identical to Earth's oranges, except for three things: they were as purple as eggplants, tasted like peaches, and contained no citric acid._

"_Have you told Rodney yet?" He could hear her trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. They knew that Rodney knew he couldn't possibly die of an allergic reaction from ingesting gesi, but he still treated the purple fruit as if it would leap out of the fruit basket and stuff itself down his throat. It was always amusing to set their genius off on a long-winded lecture about why it wasn't wise to induce anaphylactic shock in the only person who could save the city on a moment's notice, only to see him splutter to a halt when he realized that the peach pie he was eating wasn't actually made from peaches grown on Earth. Rodney had a weakness for peaches, and when he was distracted by a rant or an idea, he sometimes forgot to remember that he was "allergic" to gesi. Besides, the entire city knew that he liked the sweet fruit as much as the rest of them; he only kept up his complaints for form's sake. A complaining Rodney was a normal Rodney, and a normal Rodney meant that Atlantis was not in catastrophic danger and that everyone could go about their normal, crazy lives in Pegasus without worrying about dying in the next five minutes. _

"_No," said John lazily, leaning against the railing next to her. "I figure Teyla will tell him right before we go, and then on the other side of the 'gate, tell him that we're actually going to trade for those kofa beans he loves so much."_

"_Rodney and his caffeine," she chuckled to herself. Knowing how much coffee she drank on a daily basis, he parried straight back, "_You _and your caffeine."_

_She smiled wryly, "True, very true." She tilted her head told her office. "I suppose you told everyone else?"_

"_Told what to everyone else?" he asked, playing innocent._

_She gave him a knowing look, "So you can't explain to me why today I came into my office to find a box of gifts underneath my desk, specifically, a box filled with thirty different types of teas and forty different roasts of coffee?"_

_Oh._

_Maybe Teyla wasn't the only one who had noticed the gift-giving last year, or the year before that. Inwardly, John squirmed at the thought that his interactions with Elizabeth were being scrutinized enough for people to figure out that he gave her birthday gifts. Then again, it wasn't like the two of them were being completely secretive about it, handing each other birthday gifts on the balcony or in a quiet hallway that was only semi-private and mostly public. Still…it was a little awkward to realize that they were being watched by their staff. It did make sense in a way, but did nothing for John's wish to keep his private life just that: private._

"_Um, no, not really," he said, because he _really _had no idea that there had been a massive plan throughout the city to organize a gift like that for her. He made a mental note to ask Lorne if he knew anything about it. Quick on the heels of that thought came the odd fact that he hadn't been roped into the benign conspiracy, and he wondered if he was the only one from Elizabeth's closest circle of friends who had been excluded from participation because everyone knew he was up to something on his own. Or…it could have just been as innocent as a lot of people putting together a useful gift for someone they respected._

_She grinned at him, the years falling away from her face. "I guess not then."_

"_Does Rodney know?"_

"_Considering that his handwriting is on the note attached, along with about half of the expedition members' signatures," she responded, "he knows I have coffee when we run out of supplies. But," she added with a twinkle in her eyes, the spark of laughter that John loved to coax out of her, "he promised that he wouldn't touch my drinks unless, and I quote, 'there is a serious emergency that requires caffeine to fix.'"_

_He chuckled with her soft giggles because Rodney would see caffeine as an essential food group in a time of crisis, which it often was on Atlantis. John drank in the moment, watching Elizabeth laugh, her curls brushing across her cheek, and he wished that he had enough courage to reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear._

_Instead, he inhaled deeply and felt the weight of the jewelry box resting against his ribs, hidden underneath his jacket. John took it out, holding it in both hands, "Well, I guess I got left out of the coffee run, but I, uh, found this, well, um…" He held the flat box to her. "Happy Birthday, Elizabeth."_

_She gave him a perplexed look as she took the jewelry box from him. "Thank you, John, but you didn't ne—"_

_She stared at the open jewelry box in her hands for a seemingly eternal moment. In the reality of those brief seconds, John's mind categorized relief that he had handed it to her right-side up, that Teyla had been right (as usual), and that Elizabeth was—blushing? Then she looked up at him, her green eyes suspiciously bright in the dim light, and she asked him steadily, "John, did you…did you have someone make this?"_

_He nodded and swallowed to wet his dry throat, "Yeah, uh, a few months back, I asked Halling if he knew about any jewelry-makers here, and um, he took me to Waina. They specialize in metal crafts, so I…" He shrugged, because he was sounding like a flustered idiot, and really, he didn't need to dig himself deeper into embarrassment. He cleared his throat, "Eris and his family made it by hand. They don't know what the design means, but Teyla knows about their myths and things like that, if you want to ask her."_

You're babbling John_, his mind scolded him in a fond voice surprisingly like Carson's._ Let her talk, hmm?

_She looked back down at the necklace, the round sea-green jewel glimmering in the soft light cast by the city, and she said reverently, "I—This is beautiful, John." She looked up. "I don't know how to thank you."_

"_Have dinner with me," he said abruptly. She gave him a questioning look, because they did have dinner together, often in the mess hall late at night, usually after he dragged her out of her office when she worked too long or after she dragged him away from the infirmary when a mission had gone bad off-world. He clarified, "Tonight, I mean. I got us trays from the mess hall. I figured that you hadn't eaten yet."_

_She smiled at him, sheepishly admitting, "You're right. I haven't. Don't tell Carson?"_

_He nodded, "All right, if you'll help spring me out of the infirmary next time."_

"_John, I know better than to agree to that." She was grinning as she spoke, so he shrugged, "It was worth a try."_

_She dipped her hand into the jewelry box and took out the necklace. "Can you help me?"_

_He took the necklace from her hand, fingers carefully undoing the clasp of the delicate silver chain as she turned around, sweeping her hair to one side. He lifted the chain around her neck and leaned in closer to link the ends of the necklace. As he fastened the clasp, the soothing blended scent of Atlantis and Earth filled his senses, and underneath it all, there was her, the woman he cared so deeply for. He squeezed her shoulder when he was done and she turned back around to face him._

_When John saw his necklace resting against her breastbone, just above her heart, Eris' words came back to him: "Then you should know, for the future, that many a man has given his love a gift such as yours: a gift of the heart."_

_In that moment, John knew._

John knew he had to believe that she was going to pull through this. He had to believe that she was strong enough to climb through her personal hell and fight her way back to the life she deserved. He had to believe that he was strong enough for both of them, to help her defeat her demons, to protect her from the IOA on Earth, to hold her hand while she fell apart. He had to believe that he was strong enough to guide and protect the entire city in his care until he could take his place by her side again. He could do this; he could do what she had wanted him to do since the second she screamed at him all those months ago to "GO!" He had to hold everything together, even himself, and he could do it.

Because that's what she wanted, what she believed, and what she had entrusted to him. He could do what he had to because she _would_ be okay. That was what he was hanging onto, that promise. No matter how bitter or long the road, he knew they would have a happy ending.

He had to believe that.

He had no other choice, because he loved her.

It was as simple and as complicated as that.

~*~*~*~*~

"John wanted me to give this to you."

Elizabeth stared at the slivery-sapphire pendent swinging slowly from the hallucination's fingers. Half-convinced it would dissolve into smoke before her eyes, she carefully reached out. Fake-Kate let go of the silver chain at the same moment that her own fingers closed around the warm metal. Delicate links fell across the back of her hand, sliding smoothly over her skin in a weightless caress. She was dimly aware that fake-Kate had leaned back, her counselor's softly spoken words making their way through the fog in her mind.

The familiar weight rested in her palm and she quickly closed her fingers over the metal, feeling the blunted edges of the fire-forged sigil dig into her skin. The symbol did not vanish in her tightened grip, and a choking feeling rose in her throat at the realization that she was either so deeply immersed in this reality as to be completely lost or this—her mind stumbled and she pressed her closed fist against her mouth to choke back her inexplicable tears.

"_Happy Birthday, Elizabeth," said John with a shy, nervous smile that stunned her in its sincerity. His hands shook a little as she accepted the flat, hand-carved box from him. She thanked him formulaically, knowing that he deserved better than some vague gratitude from her and wishing that they were somewhere more private, as she opened the lid of the box. Her breath left her in a silent gasp of surprise._

_She had never been sure of the truth about what was between them. They had hovered so long on that line between friendship and partnership that the distinction might never have existed in their case. He knew her just as well as she knew him. There were secrets they held from each other, but far fewer than the secrets they held together._

_Perhaps it wasn't entirely healthy, their dependent relationship on each other, but they were both independent career professionals—she a diplomat, he a soldier. It was nice to have the sanctuary of another person's arms, even if was for just a single night of mutual understanding, to be weak in the dark and know that weakness wouldn't be ruthlessly exploited in the light of day. In the night, their masks came off, and every person they couldn't be in their duties, every emotion they couldn't allow themselves to feel, every action that was forbidden to them because of the nature of their station alone—they let themselves be, feel and do. Those nights were her sanity, her saving grace in the pressure-cooker that was her position in Atlantis, and she knew it was the same for him. They both held lives in their hands, people dying or living on their call, their choices, their decisions. There weren't many people who understood, and even fewer who knew how she wanted release from her burdens, but John did. John understood her, just as she understood him, saw deeper than the mask he displayed to the world around him._

_For a very long time, she had suspected that perhaps their occasional midnight rendezvous meant just as much to him as they had come to mean to her—not just random "stress relief," but something more that they weren't allowed to have. Staring at the beautiful necklace, the graceful pendent a stylized version of Atlantis' home symbol, she felt her cheeks flush and her eyes burn with threatening tears. Still, when she looked up to meet his eyes, she prided herself on the fact that her voice was steady, "John, did you—did you have someone make this?"_

_He nodded, his own face bright red as he stammered out an explanation of how he had managed to commission a handmade piece of custom jewelry in a galaxy that was populated by more refugees than civilizations. She barely heard any of it; instead, she searched his eyes and found the secret he was trying to hide._

_At the realization, a wild burst of conflicting emotions whirled through her, because she had always been unsure of what they were doing, tangoing over invisible lines that they always seemed to stray across, no matter how hard they fought against it, or maybe because of it. It wasn't that she hated herself for being human, or regretted whatever existed between them, but she wished things were simpler, kinder to a woman in her position._

_She was surprised that she hadn't heard any speculation in Atlantis about the two of them, but then, she was always overly cautious about how she was perceived. Her staff had to trust her to be levelheaded, to be fair, to be more than human, and she couldn't find it within herself to let them down and remind them that she just like anyone else: out of her depth and making it up as she went along._

_What was the next step now? To pretend that nothing had changed, when John was signaling something else, or to take his hand and let him lead this dance, and damn the consequences? Yet Atlantis—his city, her people—would always come before their hearts, and so the choice was never a real choice for them. She knew what the path was before her, and she couldn't turn away from it, even if it meant she stayed in this limbo for the rest of her life. She loved him, but she owed Atlantis more, and she knew he felt the same. Still, the small romantic part of her held out hope that maybe circumstances would change in the future, that they could find their own personal happy ending that balanced devotion and duty without sacrificing one for the other. _

_Studying the elegantly-wrought necklace that was his gift to her, she said from her heart, "I—This is beautiful, John." Staring into his eyes, she wondered what their ending would be, if they were doomed to be Atlantis' Antony and Cleopatra, or if there could be a future for them, a happy ending that they could both live with. "I don't know how to thank you."_

Knowing better than to let fake-Kate see her weakness, Elizabeth rested her forehead against her knees, taking slow shallow breaths to ease back the sobs in her chest. She wasn't going to cry and let Oberoth know that she was this close to the edge of breaking. If he had managed to get his hands on her memories of John, her shared secrets with the only person she had entrusted with everything, then this fight was over and she was defeated. She desperately prayed that wasn't the case.

Elizabeth had never dared to think about John's necklace; she had rarely thought of John in general beyond the glancing mention in her mind. It was too dangerous, with Oberoth always seeking her weaknesses to use against her, always pressuring her to tell her deepest secrets, always searching for the best ways to destroy her humanity. She had always fought him, and would continue to fight him to the last.

But now…

She flexed her fingers, feeling the familiar outline of the handcrafted pendent imprint itself on her skin, marking her hand as the symbol and all it stood for—family, love, _home_—had seared itself onto her soul. Atlantis and its people, the man she had asked to lead in her stead, the unexpected, silent love she had found…all were part of the bedrock of who she was.

When she had woken from the accident that should have killed her, Elizabeth knew that there was no going back, no matter what happened. The realization had shattered her, but she had held herself together for the sake of her people—because they would always be her people, just as the city would always be John's Atlantis. Their safety—that of her subordinates and particularly his—would trump her own needs at any moment in time. It was only a fair trade for all the times she had sent them into the fray with only a prayer for their survival.

Elizabeth had allowed herself a moment to grieve, when she had taken off the necklace, returning it to its giver. In that moment, she had given up everything she had loved, asking John to do what she knew he could do—to explore, to inspire, to _lead_. She knew that John would take care of Atlantis, that she could go to her grave at peace, knowing that her people, his city, their expedition was safe from harm as long as he lived.

She had never expected to see that necklace again, much less her best friend, sometimes lover, and unspoken partner. She missed John, but she knew it was for the best that he never came for her. She had been dead the moment that beam had hit her; everything that existed now was just a purgatory for a dead woman. Elizabeth didn't want him throwing his life away to rescue her. She wasn't worth the risks when there would be no benefit.

A warm breath on the skin of her neck made her shiver involuntarily and a long-silent sense tingled in the back of her mind. Her fingers tensed around the necklace as she placed the instinct. Someone was watching her, and she knew, with absolute certainty, who it was, but that was _impossible_. Unless…

Elizabeth fought back her panic and tears, sternly telling herself that John knew better, that he wouldn't have gotten himself captured by Oberoth, oh God… She would do anything, die a thousand times over if it meant that he wasn't here, that he was safe, she would give herself up if it meant that he would be safe, if Atlantis was safe, please please please please…

The soft voice in the long-forgotten corner of her mind whispered kindly, "Look up."

Elizabeth held herself still, fighting her need to know, to verify for herself that it wasn't John while being terrified that it was. She wasn't going to be manipulated like a marionette by a sadistic puppet-master, not while she still had strength. Her head stayed stubbornly down, but the voice in her mind coaxed gently, "Look up."

A part of her dimly noted that fake-Kate was sitting calmly on her high stool, her hands clearly folded in her lap, the expression on the hallucination's face patient and a touch concerned. It wasn't fake-Kate doing the manipulation then, making her think that John was here. If it wasn't fake-Kate, then it was over, and she had lost to Oberoth, because if he could screw around with her mind this much, almost convince her that John was here…

There was no point in delaying the inevitable any longer. There would be no miraculous rescue, no knight-in-shining armor, no Ascended being to take her away from all of this. Despite all the odds against her, she had nursed a frail hope of survival and now, she felt that flame of defiance flicker and die in a wisp of smoke. Perhaps it was a miracle that she had staved off Oberoth's attempts to break her for this long, fighting him with everything she had, shattering his illusions when he was unprepared. She always held onto a shred of control, blocking him from peering into the depths of her soul even as he ransacked her mind. She manipulated him, taunted him, distracted him from the truly important details she knew. Oberoth had never managed to touch John's memories before, not the secret ones that she told no one except herself. If Oberoth had managed to breach the wall she had erected between her mind and her heart, a wall on which she had set a mental sentinel with John's face to guard, then this fight was over. There was nothing left to do, but to make sure that she took her secrets to her final grave.

Elizabeth closed her eyes in defeat. She tucked everything she knew about Atlantis into a tight box in the back of her mind, laying as many false paths as she could away from information. Half-memorized schematics of the city's defenses and blurry details about weapons' capabilities were ruthlessly falsified in her mind, downplaying everything she knew. She inserted faulty efficiency rates and project completion dates into the data to make it all seem real. Names of people, trading partners, details of treaties and all the secrets she held, Elizabeth twisted and manipulated into lies, things she had convinced herself over the months of her imprisonment were true and still true. She would wreck Oberoth's confidence in her information, convince him that even the truth was a falsehood, and so keep her people safe.

If Oberoth wanted to know what she knew, she would make him pay dearly for it. While he killed her, Elizabeth knew that she had just enough knowledge about the Asuran network in her own hands to have her own revenge. She knew where she was being held in reality, behind a false wall in the Power Control Room, just a breath away from several ZPMs. All she had to do was reach out along the nanite-built pathways and twist the energy flows at the subatomic level for just a single ZPM. The resulting chain reaction would trigger a catastrophic explosion that would take out the city and a good portion of the planet's surface. But she would have to be quick about it, shoving the energy disruption into place and keeping Oberoth occupied long enough with her pain to keep him from noticing the problem until it was too late to stop it. It would be her revenge and her escape to death.

When she had all of that at the ready in her mind, she took in a shuddering deep breath, opening her eyes to the soft white blanket that covered her legs. Fighting down her self-preservation instincts, Elizabeth gave herself a moment's reprieve to grieve for everything she had given up and to fear the pain that would come. Then, clutching John's necklace in her hand and drawing her last strength from all she had loved, she steeled herself to go down in wave of destruction.

Elizabeth looked up and felt her breath freeze in her chest. John's clear green eyes met hers unflinchingly, the stubborn faith and desperate hope she saw in his eyes all too real to be false. She could almost hear him willing for her to believe what she was almost convinced to be true, pleading, begging her to know that she was safe, he was here and it was over. She could almost hear his voice in her memory, soothing her in her darkest hours, whispering to her over and over again that he would always be with her, always find some way protect her somehow, no matter what. His expression was so real, so honest… Elizabeth knew in her heart that no Asuran, no hallucination could _ever_ duplicate that look in his eyes.

Something cracked inside of Elizabeth as her carefully constructed mental defenses crumpled around her, her plan fell to pieces, and she broke away from his open gaze, his pleas too much, far too much for her to handle right now. She hid her face in her arms, her unbound hair falling forward to shield her face from sight. Desperately clinging to the shreds of her self-control, she squeezed her eyes shut even as silent tears slipped free. Nothing came rushing into the silence, no pain, no terror, no demands…nothing. How could Oberoth do nothing when he had to have known that she was ready to fight him? Unless…unless Oberoth wasn't in—

Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to complete her thought, the renewed hope still so fragile in her hands that she was afraid that the slightest breath would destroy it completely. Biting her bottom lip, she stubbornly held in the wild sobs of relief mixed with terror. She was so tired of fighting. She was so tired. She wanted to die and escape from this prison, but if she had to chose, she wanted to live.

Dimly, she heard fake-Kate—no, she corrected herself—she heard real?-Kate say something before there was soft click of her shoes and a quiet hiss of a door unlocking, locking, that told Elizabeth that she was alone. Relieved by the solitude, she risked a glance up into the observation room. John was still there, one hand on the railing, the other touching the glass barrier between them. He was watching her, a sincere expression of regret and longing on his face. He lingered at the window before he slowly turned away, moving out of her sight. She watched him go, unvoiced screams for him to stay, to keep the fear at bay, but she made no sound.

Elizabeth rolled onto her side, still curled up into a huddled ball, and let the weeks run past in her memory. From blinding pain to the murky drugged hours that passed her by, the memories were firmly separated from all her other experiences by the fact that Oberoth never appeared to her, never in all the minutes and hours that trickled down in the flow of time. There was no pale blue light when she closed her eyes, just peaceful darkness. When pain came, it was the kind that was quickly muffled with waves of cottony warmth or icy chill that wrapped her up and swept her away. Thinking back now, focusing on the details she had missed, she remembered that no one around her took pleasure in her state, in causing her distress. Their smiles were soft and sympathetic, verging on pity and regret, emerging when they tried to convey comfort and good intentions. The nurses and doctors around her acted so _human_. Elizabeth had thought then that it was because they were just realistic hallucinations, puppets controlled by a master manipulator, but now…she wasn't so sure. She closed her eyes again, wondering if this was just a dream, or if she could take the hopeless chance that this was real and not some trap? The tears came in a wild rush of hope and she let herself cry in quiet gasps for air.

The realization that so many possibilities were before her, that her reality was as fragmented as before, yet also so unbearably coherent, was overwhelming. Was she in control now or was she free? Could she trust what her senses told her—that the filtered air had the salty tang of the sea, that the sheets were smooth against her skin, that the temperature was at a comfortably warm setting, that the Marines at the door now were living, breathing human beings who were bored out of their minds watching someone they distantly knew have a complete breakdown? Could she take that risk, to play into the game around her, to test the truth of her reality to see if it was what it claimed to be?

A monitor chirped unhappily above her and she was barely aware of the brisk footsteps entering the room. No one touched her, even as they talked to her, trying to calm her down. Words were exchanged in concerned tones. She ignored them all. They didn't matter, not yet, not yet. What mattered was John, standing watch over her, being there for her—why wasn't he here, in person, with her? Yet he was here, nearby, protective, steady; John was _here_ and they were both safe.

Elizabeth let herself crumble into broken pieces without asking the reasons why. The memories that she carried within her, the darkest moments of her life that she hid from herself, those were reasons enough, but she cried also for the memories of balconies and conversations under warm sunlight and cool moonlight, of a voice in the darkness who offered so much to her, so much more than she felt she could repay. She was caught at a crossroads and she didn't know which way to turn. But then again, maybe she did. Maybe she did know, but she was too scared to decide if she could trust herself, and it had been too long since she had trusted another person to guide her. What were her choices?

She dimly heard the monitor beeping angrily as she continued to sob in choking breaths that stole the air from her lungs. Warm hands carefully rubbed circles on her back as outside voices encouraged, coaxed, pleaded with her to calm down. She ignored them, sinking into the darkness that had been her friend for so long. Elizabeth barely felt the cool wave of medication that swept her away into sleep. She didn't have the strength to fight it.

Maybe she was free from Oberoth, maybe she wasn't. Either way…maybe it didn't matter anymore, which opinion was right, because John was here, and wherever he was, she knew she was safe. John had always kept her safe. She remembered that; she trusted that, no matter what the hallucinations had said and done to her in the past. John would never hurt her, ever. Real-John had given her a necklace on the eve of her birthday while they stood on a windswept balcony and laughed. He had smiled, and with his eyes, he had wordlessly told her he loved her.

Elizabeth clung to that last thought before she gave into the sweet darkness of rest, her fingers still wrapped around John's gift, holding onto it for dear life and sanity itself, because she knew this for a fact:

He was her guiding star home.

~*~*~*~*~

Kate opened her session with Elizabeth as she always did, silently taking off the other woman's restraints. Elizabeth had been unusually passive for the past couple of days, more docile than Kate had even thought possible, and that was alarming. Yes, she was interacting with her environment more, but nothing else really had changed. She still didn't speak to anyone. Syringes still sent her into panic attacks that no one could talk her down from, and Elizabeth still wasn't eating properly.

Over the past two days, Jennifer had a look in her eyes, the regretful one that all doctors had before they did something that was necessary but unsettling to them, and Kate knew she was running out of time. If she didn't get Elizabeth to a tipping point within the next day or so, Jennifer was going to step in and intervene to keep their patient's health from sliding further downhill. Kate knew what the tipping point looked like, something like a shock to Elizabeth's sense of reality, a moment when all her assumptions were twisted or turned upside down. The main problem was, though, that Kate had no idea how to coax her friend to that crucial breakthrough without accidentally shattering Elizabeth's sense of stability and control.

So when she sat back in her seat, her hand clasped in Elizabeth's, Kate hesitated for a moment before she spoke, careful to keep her voice low and smooth. "Elizabeth, do you mind if we talk? If you want me to leave now," she offered, "let go of my hand."

Elizabeth didn't react to the opportunity, but she didn't loosen her grip on Kate's fingers, so the psychologist took it as implicit permission to continue. Kate searched her memory for the words and emotions she wanted to invoke in her patient. When she was ready, Kate began quietly, "I will be honest with you, Elizabeth: I don't know where to start.

"I know it's hard for you to believe that you're safe now, that Asura is gone, and they will never come after you again. I don't blame you. You've survived so much, and I understand if you never want to talk about it with anyone. Sometimes, memories hurt, but sometimes, they heal.

"This is what I remember: I remember a woman who was trapped in a reality that didn't seem right to her, so she fought the lies with everything she had. Afterwards, I remember how I sat with her for hours, talking through what happened in the months she experienced and how she felt, cut off from the people she cared so much about. I remember how she found the strength inside of herself to trust that she was safe, that the world around her was real, and that we were never going to let her go without a fight.

"I'm not going to lie to you, Elizabeth. This is going to be a hard road, for the both of us, but you're not so broken that you can't be healed. The Asurans aren't going to win because we've done this once together, and we'll do it again. We're going to question everything around us until we know the truth and trust it. We're going to stumble and fall, but we're going to pick ourselves right back up again when that happens.

"I'm going to be with you every step of the way, I swear. I'm not going to give up on you; _no one_ on Atlantis is going to give up on you. You're a strong woman, Elizabeth, and nothing can change that. No one can take that away from you. The entire city is with you on this journey, and we're supporting you a hundred percent."

Kate paused to gather her emotions, praying that she was saying the right words for the long run. She slipped her free hand into her pocket, her fingers finding the necklace she had carried with her for all these weeks of twice-daily visits with Elizabeth. It had become a talisman to Kate, reminding her of the world outside the isolation unit, and of a man who was placing his trust in her to bring his other half back to him. She didn't have to look up into the observation area to know that he was standing there, watching over both of them. She took her hand out of her pocket. She hoped this was the right thing to do.

"John wanted me to give this to you," said Kate quietly, opening her palm and letting the silver chain slip past her fingers as the delicately-crafted necklace rested in her hand. She saw that Elizabeth's eyes focused immediately on the metal symbol Kate held, a flicker of recognition dancing across the other woman's green eyes.

Elizabeth stared at the silvery-blue pendant in the stylized form of Atlantis' point of origin for a long moment. Then Kate moved her wrist smoothly, telegraphing her movements, and let the necklace dangle from her fingers so that she was only holding the silver links of the chain. The silver pendant swung in the air between them once, twice. On the third swing, Elizabeth's fingers let go of Kate's hand to clutch at the small piece of her past. The psychologist gently draped the chain over the back of her friend's hand before letting go and folding her own hands in her lap.

Elizabeth wrapped one arm around her knees, the other pressing her closed fist against her mouth. She lowered her head, tucking herself away. It was her silent signal that she wanted to think and Kate did not press. A slight tremor shook Elizabeth's frail shoulders from time to time and Kate had to hold herself still, sternly reminding herself to be patient and passive. Moving too fast and too familiarly could spook Elizabeth and undo everything that she had managed to build up thus far.

Minutes passed in that silent tableau and then Elizabeth froze, her breathing rapid and shallow. Kate watched the numbers on the oxygen saturation monitor drop, her own concern growing as Elizabeth wasn't getting enough oxygen into her body. Just before Kate was going to stand up from her seat and signal John to call in Keller, Elizabeth abruptly looked up, her eyes unerringly looking through the observation room window as if she knew John was standing there, watching over her as her personal guardian angel. For a moment, Kate saw their gazes lock, and there was a heartrending vulnerability in Elizabeth's eyes for the briefest of seconds. Then Elizabeth just abruptly looked back down, curling tighter into a ball on her bed, her hand still clenched tight around the necklace John had given her, and Kate knew the session was over.

She quietly stood up and moved away from the gurney, murmuring as she always did, "I'll be back later, Elizabeth. If you need me, just call the nurse on duty."

There was, as always, no response from the still form on the bed, face still buried in her arms. Kate hadn't expected one; it would be too much to ask after today: she had found the tipping point.

As she walked out of the room, Kate reflected on what had happened in that brief second.

Many people would have dismissed it out of hand. Elizabeth had been given something that reminded her of her life before she had been captured and tortured by a sadistic jailer. It was mere chance that she had looked upwards and seen someone from her past, a dear friend standing guard over her. To Kate, though, it was something else entirely different.

It was only a moment, but it was enough to know that Elizabeth looked to one person to protect her, that one person had the best chance out of all of them to save her, and in the process, save himself. When Elizabeth had looked up to see John at the window, under the confusion and defiance, there was also the faintest glimpse of hope in her eyes, a fleeting hint of the woman she had been before and still was.

Kate knew, as she walked out of the isolation room, that her patient, her friend, her leader was going to recover. She smiled to herself.

He was Elizabeth's salvation; she was John's hope. No matter what the Asurans had done to her, and no matter what Earth's politicians threw at them, Kate knew that as long as John and Elizabeth stood together, they would triumph over all their tribulations. They were strong apart, but powerful together.

In Kate's mind, there was no question that things would turn out all right in the end because when it came to love, there were no impossibilities.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Thank you to everyone who has added this story onto their alert and/or favorites lists, and particularly to those of you who have left reviews with every chapter. I am extremely grateful for the time each of my reviewers took to let me know what they think of the story.

With this final chapter, I know that I have left a lot of unanswered questions, particularly about Elizabeth's future. Rest assured that these questions will be addressed in this story's sequel, _Step into the Morning_, that I plan to write over the summer. Right now, in real life, I am beginning work on a capstone project that will demand most of my time and energy for the next four months. I know it's a long hiatus to ask of everyone who has faithfully followed this story and somewhat of an unexpected surprise for those of you who have just added this story to your alerts.

So here are two short snippets that will hopefully make the final cut in the sequel. They are unrelated to each other, but I hope that they will give you something to look forward to in the coming months. Thank you again to everyone who has made this story so enjoyable to write and post.

~*~*~*~*~

_**The IOA delegation will arrive in Colorado Springs in two days. I expect them to promptly dial in at the Midway station, so you should be prepared to greet them in Atlantis by 2500 AST of the same day.**_

_**Remind your scientists to play nice, Carter. I don't want to explain to the President, well, anything that requires technobabble to understand.**_

_**-O'Neill**_

Evan stared at the printed email for a long moment before he put the piece of paper back on his desk. With a heavy sigh, he sat back in his chair. The email was dated yesterday, the day of the weekly databurst, which meant that time was running out to spread the news across Atlantis.

He had no doubt how the nearly blank sheet of paper had ended up on his desk this morning, and he wouldn't be surprised to learn that an identical copy had shown up on Radek's desk as well. Maybe the news should have been passed on to McKay and Sheppard, but Evan thought it was better that if there was going to be resistance that the two men in question knew nothing about it—McKay because the man was a horrible liar, and the Colonel because he had other things to worry about.

There wasn't any question about how the Marines would react to the news; they were men and women in the armed forces, after all. If they wanted to rebel, it would be in subtle ways that wouldn't get them Articled 15-ed (he hoped). The more volatile reactions would come from the civilian side of Atlantis, where people had relatively less to lose, career-wise. The IOA could fire a brilliant scientist, but to blacklist a genius from the private sector would be nearly impossible. Evan hoped that McKay's return to duty and his acerbic tongue would be enough to keep the more creatively furious of the scientists under control.

He began to clear his desktop, sorting his file folders into complete and incomplete reports. As he organized the rest of his cluttered desk, he decided to stop by Radek's lab and see for himself the person they were all risking so much for, but he also knew that Elizabeth was worth it. When his laptop was shut down and tucked away in a drawer, he made a few radio calls. By the time all six men that he had summoned to his office had arrived, Evan was gone.

Instead, the Marine commanders found an empty office, with a cleared desk that had a single sheet of white printer paper on it. At the bottom of the short email message, someone had written in firm clear handwriting: _There will be no orders issued. Do as you will_.

~*~*~*~*~

Ashley felt that she was a fairly calm and sociable person in the general scheme of things. She could carry on a conversation with non-scientists and not violate five social norms or end up in a comatose state from boredom. She wasn't clueless about mainstream ideas or trends, even if she chose not to flaunt her knowledge of the fashion world. She knew her friends called her normal, and her colleagues called her an "anomaly" because she had social skills, unlike their department head. When she was angry or frustrated, she tended to launch logical, nuanced rants that ripped her opponents to shreds, but she wasn't inclined to violence as a method to get revenge.

Right now, though, she was longing for a dull knife, plastic restraints, and uninterrupted time with Monsieur Francois.

"Excuse me, Doctor?"

Ashley bit back a vicious urge to scream at the sound of yet another unwelcome voice, but she forced herself to be at least pleasantly neutral when she turned around.

"Yes, Mr. Woolsey?" She allowed herself to feel a bit of pride that her voice was level and calm, even though her mind noted rather inappropriately that his forehead was shiny. The American IOA representative smiled politely back at her, "I was wondering, you are a scientist, correct?"

"Yes," _because I'm wearing Science blue, or are you colorblind as well as being a jerk?_ Outwardly, Ashley simply nodded.

"May I ask which department?"

"Life Sciences," she said, refusing to specify her line of work. If Woolsey was going to come after her, she'd make him track her down.

"Do you happen to be a biologist, Doctor—?"

"Howard," said Ashley grudgingly, not quite keeping her irritation out of her voice, "and yes, I am."

Woolsey nodded before he said calmly, "Dr. Howard, I believe I have found your missing ferrets then."

She stared at him, _Ferrets?_


End file.
